


gather up the lost and sold (give up the ghost)

by youngbloodbuzz



Series: The Matryoshka Principle [1]
Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Nikita (TV 2010), Nikita - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alzheimer's Disease, Angst, Crossover, F/F, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Multi, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-17
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-09 18:13:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 31,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4359215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youngbloodbuzz/pseuds/youngbloodbuzz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Peggy's birthday looming ahead and her memory slowly slipping away, Steve has no idea what he's getting himself into when he befriends Peggy's caretaker and closest companion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> there's nothin' like jumping back in the writing game after two years with a massive story. this is part one of a crossover series between the mcu and nikita. let's hope i can keep it up. 
> 
> thank you theseerasures and counterpunches for beta-ing, you're lifesavers.

By early March, the cold wind of winter was already dying the day Peggy decides it's the perfect time to drag Steve outside to the retirement home’s garden for a stroll.

He gives her a wary glance, “Don’t you think it’s a little too cold for a walk?”

Her mouth sets in a thin line. “I’m ninety-two, Steve, not dead,” she says with a stern glare.

The numbers don’t add up in his head. “Coulda sworn you were ninety-four,” he says with a mischievous smile.

“That’s no way to flatter an old woman, have you learned nothing?” She says with a twinkle in her eyes. “Now get on with it and get us outside, I’ve been going mad being cooped up in here all winter,” she orders him, her voice just as strong with an authoritative insistence he’s admired since the war.

And with that, he helps bundle her up in warm layers, and off they went out of the door. He leads her down the path of the garden, where they settle themselves under a grove of trees overlooking the grounds.

“Such a gentleman,” she murmurs when he helps her transition from her wheelchair to a bench, a blanket draped across her lap, and chuckles at his blush when he settles next to her.

On rare occasions like this was when he got to enjoy her lucidity and the familiarity of their banter; the quiet smiles between familiar companions in war. He blinks, looking down at their joined hands. He sometimes has to remind himself that the war was over, that he was nearly seventy years overdue his own VE Day.

Her hands were already cold in the short time they spent outside, veiny and calloused, the lines in her palm deep with age and wear. A ball of emotion lodges itself in the back of his throat when he realizes he doesn’t remember the last time he held them before they were scarred with age. He wraps his hands fuller around the one settled on his lap, allowing his own warmth to seep into her.

“You should see it during the fall,” she says next to him, taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly, her breath misting in the air.

He looks up from their interconnected hands to watch her stare over the melting and bare grounds, exposed trees scattered around them, her face with a sort of reverence he’s sure not many people are privy to.

“I’ve seen it,” he says softly, watching the way her pale cheeks turn pink in the biting wind, disregarding the need to remind her he’s already seen the trees of Washington be painted the colours of autumn during the past year.

When they had told him she had Alzheimer's the first time he felt brave enough to go see her face to face, he almost turned back around and left. He had stared down gun barrels and the white expanse of snow and ice while flying a plane headfirst into it, and yet facing an old woman whom he promised a dance to seemed to pull the air out of him.

There Steve was, standing tall and terrified, and very much alive, and there was Peggy, sitting in her den and waiting in the present, and more often than not these days, waiting in the past. In his mind, that was a more braver act than he could ever imagine doing.

With that clear in mind, he had straightened his back and turned back around inside the home to get his visitor's pass.

Sitting now next to her, worried any moment for any lapse in memory, his shoulders tense when out of the corner of his eyes, he spots her. A familiar ghost with long brown hair tucked under a beanie and bright blue eyes situated behind large glasses sitting on her nose, walking arm in arm down the path with an elderly man, another resident of the retirement home, and prattling away at him.

It isn’t the first time he’s seen her during the few times he’s visited. He had at first assumed she was part of the nursing staff or some other employee, but dismissed those thoughts the more she floated in and out of periphery the more he visited.

With Peggy’s thumb stroking the back of his hand, he discreetly watches the woman settle the elder man on a bench a few paces away from them. They weren’t the only ones wandering the gardens. Other elderly residents, some with nurse escorts, slowly tread by on the path, paying them no attention and enjoying the briskly warm day.

He’s pulled out of his mental meanderings when Peggy’s gentle grasp in his hand suddenly tightens, her grip comforting in its surprising strength.

“Penny for your thoughts?” She asks when he turns to her, a small smile playing on her lips.

He shifts on the bench, “It’s probably nothing.”

“Must be more than nothing if you missed me talking, and for a good full minute I might add.” She pulls their hands into her lap when he sighs, “What is it?”

He ducks his head from her gaze, unsurprised at the way she still manages to pull things out of him, “It’s been about two years now since everything happened, and sometimes it still feels like SHIELD doesn’t trust me.”

She’s gentle when she asks, “And what gave you that idea?”

He looks to the grounds, the trees and flowerbeds barren, “You ever felt like you were being watched when you were working with them?”

Peggy turns silent, the sound between them filled with birds flying in from the south and the cold wind blowing gently. He glances back at her, her brow turned down into a frown and her eyes clouded.

Abruptly, his heartbeat is loud in his ears, a cold shiver going down his spine. He tilts his head at her, “Peg?”

She blinks, as if shuffling away a memory and looks away before speaking softly. “I think. I used to think,” she says with a painful sort of uncertainty, and with a sudden sharp inhale, she clasps her other hand down onto the entwined pile in her lap. “But not by SHIELD, no. The days of the Cold War had us all paranoid, you can imagine the sort of behaviour and trouble we all managed to get ourselves into for a good six decades.”

She gives him a rueful smile, knowing fully well the secrets of SHIELD were kept locked away from prying eyes. “I imagine, being thrust in this brave new world of ours must be fairly similar.”

He gives her a conceding nod with a small smile, swallowing a lump of relief. “Not as much fun as the books and documentaries made it sound.”

“Quite the opposite,” she says softly.

When two elderly women on their second lap across the grounds pass them by, he glances at the corner of his eyes again. It was nothing out the ordinary; a young woman visiting her grandfather, completely ignoring his glassy eyes as she talked unintelligibly from this distance, her hands waving enthusiastically as she spoke. A comforting habit perhaps, for herself or for the man. Or something else entirely.

“Nearly five decades as Director, what was it like?” He asks.

Peggy huffed softly, an amused smile teasing her mouth, “As well as you can imagine. It’s only in old age that I can freely admit that I nearly lost it more than once back in the early days of SHIELD. When we were all running around headless and trying to find our footing at the same time. It’s easy to have a bit of a laugh of it now, but back then,” she pauses and sighs, “it was just as possible to have a trusted colleague stab you in the back as to have an enemy operative cross sides. It was a game we were all still learning how to play, but we made due.”

He swallows heavily, regret pulling at his chest. It was nearly impossible to not play the _‘If Only’_ game where Peggy was concerned. He would fly that plane into the ground again and again, but by God he’d find a way to drag himself out of that frozen wreckage of metal and snow, and walk across the tundra if he had another chance. If only to be at Peggy’s side for when she was leading the fight against the shadows of a cold untrustworthy world, to pull her back into the warmth for when she got lost.

“How’d you manage?” He nearly chokes out.

She gives him a conspiratorial grin, “Never let it be said that the weight of saving the world stood on the shoulders of one person.” Her sharp smile softens when he feels his face contort in confusion, “You find your people, ones you can trust and depend on, and you keep them. A lesson even I had to learn.” She tilts her head then, as if a sudden thought occurred to her, “You _have_ managed to make friends other than me in the past two years, haven’t you?”

With a low exhale, he leans further back into the bench as a late winter flurry of snow begins to drift down in a slow dance. “Well, I think the librarian Mrs. Keller still suspects I’m Captain America, but I think we’re getting there,” he answers with a wry grin.

Peggy sighs with an exasperated but fond smile, “You bloody idiot. Mrs. Keller isn’t going to understand why you keep showing up to coffee dates with a black eye and a concussion due to running into fists.”

“I was thinking more of a museum date rather than coffee.”

Just as Peggy’s fond smile morphs into a serious frown, a sudden bout of coughing from the elderly man has him tensing.

Peggy eyes him with a curious glance, “What is it?”

Steve spares a glance at the pair, the young woman with her hand gently rubbing the man’s trembling back, the coughing fit easing out.

Peggy’s grip on his hands tighten, “Steve?”

He turns back to her and murmurs, “I think we’re being watched.”

She blinks at him for a moment, and with a quick glimpse over his shoulders, she leans back into the bench with a hum, “The young woman with the glasses, prattling away to Mr. Bishop as if he has any idea as to what she’s saying?”

He can’t contain his smile, not at all surprised Peggy - even in her old age - is still just as capable of espionage, “That’s the one,” he says.

Peggy only hums again and watches white flakes of snow drift around them. “She’s been following us the moment you arrived. She’s done it many times before.”

He feels his mouth drop open, a little perturbed at the idea that someone can one-up him so often and that Peggy seems so unconcerned with the idea of someone spying on them for the past hour. He almost feels himself asking if Peggy knew she had been spying on the days Peggy couldn’t remember him at all.

“I’ve seen people catch flies like that, you know,” she quips, her face of perfect innocence.

His mouth shuts with a click. “The entire time?” He asks with a huff.

“Ever since the first day you visited.”

He blinks and shifts, twisting his body his body to get a better vantage point of the woman.

“Oh would you relax, she’s harmless, I can assure you.”

He twists his mouth into a disbelieving curl, “Not pretty keen on being spied on Peg, harmless or not.”

She smiles sympathetically at him. “I know, but it was more for my benefit than for yours. You can trust it wasn’t my idea; it’s not that she doesn’t find you trustworthy, she’s just rather...protective. I suppose I could be partially to blame, I may have rubbed off on her in the years I’ve known her.”

“So she’s your security then.”

Peggy rolls her eyes, making her seem like a comically normal elderly woman, with snowflakes melting in her pepper grey hair, and half buried under a thick layer of sweaters and a blanket. “Well, when you put it like that, it sounds absolutely ridiculous,” she mutters, her cheeks darkening.

“So - “

“So, she’s harmless, if not utterly absurd to go as far as to spy on you of all people for an old retired woman.”

His shoulders drop, “An old retired woman with more secrets than Congress put together?”

She chuckles, her hand gently rubbing his. “Yes,” she sighs, her eyes clouding once again as she turns to look away. “I’ve...I’ve been meaning for the pair of you to meet actually.”

For the first time, she sounds hesitant. “One of those dependables?”

She nods, and glances at him uncertainly, “I wasn’t planning you meeting this way, but I suppose it was bound to happen one way or another.” She exhales and straightens as if to steel herself, “Might as well get on with it.”

Before he can even respond, she leans forward to peer around him. “Darling, you can stop your lurking about now. Come on over and say hello,” she calls out.

Feeling it was safe now, Steve turns fully to look at the woman to see her tense, her back facing them, still talking to her companion.

Peggy sighs with exasperation, “Honestly, you know Mr. Bishop can’t hear a word you’re saying, he’s eighty-nine percent deaf, remember?”

The unintelligible chattering comes to a pause, the woman inclining her head slightly to nearly look over her shoulder. From his vantage point, Steve could see Mr. Bishop turn to the woman with a gentle smile, pat her on the arm and slowly take his leave.

The young woman was still unmoving as Mr. Bishop made his way down the path. “You know, Peggy, we could just do this ano-”

“Shush,” she interrupted with a quick pat on his hand, and calls over again, “Don’t make me get up and come over there. You don’t want me breaking a hip too, now do you?”

No matter how empty the threat - he’d never let her fall in the first place - it seems to have done the trick. The woman’s shoulders fall into a sigh and without more incentive, she pops up from her seat with a bounce of energy and makes her way over.

Once she stands in front of them with a hand on her hip, blue eyes staring sharply at Peggy, whom with satisfaction, beams up at the woman. “Y’know that ain’t funny, Pegs.”

“Oh, but it worked didn’t it?” Peggy turns her bright grin to Steve, “A good threat of bodily harm never fails to work, remember that.”

Steve blinks at the pair of them, at their easy friendliness and banter. It was far more than he envisioned in the ten seconds given to him to comprehend.

He scratches the back of his neck, the distant sensation of being the odd man out creeping up on him until a nudge to his ribs has him blinking back to the present, “What did I tell you about the flies, darling.”

His face falls into an unamused stare. When she winks back at him, he breaks into a smile, unable to contain the lightness in his chest at seeing the happy glint in her eyes, if only for a moment.

When he looks back up at the woman, it’s to find her peering at them with a curious stare. It’s only then does he finds his manners. Clearing his throat, he jumps from the bench and helps Peggy to her feet, and holds out a hand to the woman, the other holding Peggy steady around her waist. “Steve,” he says with a small nod. “Steve Rogers.”

The woman’s face breaks out into a bright smile, and grasps his hand in a surprisingly strong grip. “Oh, I know who are,” she says, enthusiastically pumping his hand up and down. “I’m a big fan.”

Next to him, Peggy fondly rolls her eyes. “Steve, this is -”

“Annie,” the woman - Annie - interrupts, releasing his hand with a wide grin. “Annie Martin.”

Peggy tsks with an exasperated stare, “Really?”

Annie shrugs with an unconcerned air, “Just testin’ it out.”

“Aren’t those ridiculous glasses enough?” Annie, or not-Annie as Steve surmises with a wary stare, just gives another shrug as Peggy rolls her eyes again. “Let’s try this again, with no interruptions,” she says with a sharp stare to not-Annie. “Steve, this is Angie Martinelli. Angie, Steve.”

Not-Annie, now Angie, once again reaches out to briefly grab and shake his hand, “It’s great to finally meet you. I’m a huge fan at the way you punch aliens and piss off Republicans.”

A faint blush makes its way up his neck and to his already reddened cheeks at the sudden memory of his last TV interview. His debate between the anchor regarding the current issue of public health care caused quite a stir. “Just doing my job, ma’am.”  
  
With a burst of laughter, Angie shakes her head. “Ma’am? You sure knew how to pick ‘em, English,” she gives Peggy a conspiratory wink. “Listen, you don’t gotta call me ma’am, alright? Makes me sound like an old lady like this one here, Angie is just fine.”

She grins at him in such a way that he almost feels bad for borderline accusing her of spying on him just five minutes prior, despite the fact that that’s exactly what she was doing. It threw him for a loop.

Peggy grins shyly up at him, an unusual thing for him to witness. “She’s rather a handful at first, but you get used to it after a while.”

“Speak for yourself,” Angie shoots back, “You think everyone likes sittin’ out in the cold for hours on end?”

“It was no more than twenty minutes, and you of all people shouldn’t complain knowing very well that none of that absurd lurking was necessary,” Peggy answers with a scowl that was more fond than stern.

Angie’s face twists into a sheepish grin and turns to Steve, “Sorry about that by the way. It’s sort of a habit.”

Steve nods, congenial and hard pressed to believe that he wouldn’t have done the same. “Personal security? He ribs.

Peggy tsks again with another nudge to his ribs as Angie chuckles, answering, “Personal assistant.”

Promptly, a beeping noise cuts into their conversation. “Speak of the devil,” Angie mutters, digging around in her jacket pockets and pulling out her phone, sweeping her thumb over the screen to stop the incessant noise. “And that’s lunch.”

A frown shadows Peggy’s face. Angie, noticing, gives her a sympathetic smile, “Sorry hon, shoulda warned you earlier, but it’s already hitting one.”

Steve already finds himself missing Peggy’s company, worry tugging at him that the next time he visits she won’t be as lucid.

“But, y’know Cap,” Angie turns back to him, considering him for a moment with a brief hesitance, “you’re welcome to stay longer and join us?”

He nearly jumps to say yes in response, but the warm frail body next to him has him pausing. “Unless you don’t have anywhere to be, that is,” Peggy adds with a grateful smile at Angie that turns shy when she turns to him.

As if almost on cue, his stomach growls. He smiles, “I would love to.”

Peggy’s smile brightens, dodging between Steve and Angie, as if she couldn’t believe her two favourite people were to join her for a simple lunch. He doesn’t remember seeing Peggy this happy.

Steve and Angie help her back into her wheelchair, and only when Angie begins fretting over tucking the blanket more firmly around Peggy and Steve double checking the wheel locks does she snap playfully at them. “Oh, bloody Nora, sod off and stop babying me, would you? I already feel useless half the time.”

They share a sheepish smile. “Alright, lead the cavalry then, “ Angie says as Peggy takes off on her own, muttering how her arms need some exercise. “What are you trainin’ for? The Olympics?” Angie teasingly calls out, following after her.

“Going for the gold,” Peggy shoots back immediately, in tune with their practiced banter.

Steve smiles at the pair of them, following not far behind, his nerves feeling slightly more abated with each passing second; more than a little amused, more than a little envious at the easiness between them.

Falling into step with the pair, he quickly and silently berates himself. A world torn apart by war had no time for the easiness between soldiers and friends alike. Not even a what-could-have-been. It had been a cruel time of sacrifices and isolation. But the times of the modern world - this brave new world - it’s both a blessing and a curse.

Peering at Angie through the corner of his eyes, he watches the way she carefully monitors Peggy, smiling gently over her. He feels both grateful that Peggy found her person while late in life, and regret he couldn’t have been one those dependables when the world celebrated the end of the war.

Abruptly, he spies Angie’s smile fall into a frown just as Peggy slows down her trek, pausing in the middle of the path. His heart finds its way back into his throat.

He and Angie share a worried glance and carefully move in front of Peggy to see bunching up her brows, her eyes darting around the area with discomforting unfamiliarity.

“What’s wrong?” He asks, his voice tight in his throat, cursing in his head.

Angie barely spares him a glimpse when she kneels on a thin layer of fresh snow in front of Peggy, her hand slowly coming to rest on one of Peggy’s knees, “English?”

When Peggy doesn’t respond, he and Angie share another worried look. Angie turns back to Peggy and gently jostles her knee. “Hey, Peg. What’s the matter?”

At the jostle, Peggy’s clouded eyes snap back to Angie’s with a frown, ”I...I don’t remember where I am.”

That uncomfortably new sense of dread slowly treks its way down Steve’s spine, and he inhales a trembling breath.

He spies Angie doing the same, with more subtly. “That’s alright, hon. You’re at the retirement home, Inglewood. This is a safe place, remember? You chose it yourself.”

Peggy slowly nods, her eyes in a daze, slowly drifting from one thing to another. Steve’s hands clench into fists at his sides, fighting that ever present lump.

“I thought...we were going to lunch, weren’t we? I don’t remember…”

When her eyes dart around with increasing panic, Angie slowly brings her hands up to cradle Peggy’s face, gently coaxing her gaze back to Angie, “Hey. Hey, c’mon, you remember me, don’t you?”

Peggy inclines her head, the corners of her mouth curling into a barely noticeable smile, “Angie.”

Angie smiles at that, and beckons her head in Steve’s direction, “And you remember this big lump, don’t you?”

Peggy turns her small smile to him, her glazed eyes blinking slowly. “Yes,” she says softly, glancing between the two. His lungs slowly release the air he was unknowingly holding, with Angie smiling at Peggy and rising to her feet.

“You gotta stop scaring me like that, English. I’ll be grey by the time it’s your birthday,” Angie says, deciding to commandeer the wheelchair and push Peggy the rest of the way with Steve quietly following.

“Nonsense, darling, you haven’t aged a day for years,” Peggy spoke softly, reclining further in her chair, as if the day’s toll had taken all the energy out of her.

With Angie studiously leading them through the doors of the retirement home, her hands gripping the chair with white knuckles, Steve is once again hit with the loss of time. Watching the way Peggy seems to drown in her oversized sweatshirt, her hands lying limp and curled in her lap. He’s suddenly aware of the terror seeping through him that Peggy may have not recognized him at all.

“I think,” Peggy’s voice suddenly cutting into the trio’s silence once they reach the dining room, her voice weary. “I think I might go up for a nap.”

Angie stops them in the middle of the hall, “Peggy, you gotta eat.”

“I ate already.”

Angie huffs, “Yeah, at nine for breakfast. You don’t wanna starve by the time it’s dinner, do you?”

“I’ve managed before in case you’ve forgotten,” Peggy bites back with a scowl.

They both pause at the abrupt change in Peggy’s demeanor. Angie’s back tenses and Steve grits his teeth as a brooding shadow cascades across Peggy’s features.

An orderly passing by pauses next to the trio, taking in the scene with a concerned frown, “Hey honey, everything going okay here?”

Angie exhales heavily, “It’s fine Olivia, she’s just tired. Doesn’t wanna eat.”

The orderly, Olivia, glances down at a silently brooding Peggy before placing a concerned hand on Angie’s arm, “You can’t keep doing this to yourself, honey. It’s killing you.”

Slowly crossing his arms, Steve watches as Angie’s shoulders tremble with a sigh. “You go home for the day, honey. Take some time for yourself,” Olivia says gently.  
  
“I can’t, I gotta -”

“You do enough, Angie. Everyday. Let your friend here take you to lunch,” offers gently, sparing him a quick glance. “You go on ahead, I’ll take care of her, alright?”

Angie’s spine crumples in defeat, staring down at the back of Peggy’s head and with an imperceptible nod, allows Olivia to take the wheelchair handles.

There’s an ache in Steve’s chest when he spies Peggy’s face as Olivia turns her around, her eyes distant and pained. Before Olivia can take her away, she suddenly reaches out and grasps Angie’s hand. Angie blinks and looks down at their hands. Steve suddenly finds himself looking in a mirror, watching Angie stare at the odd way their hands fit, old and new together.

When Angie finally looks up, a small crease between her brows, Peggy gives her a painful smile that Angie slowly returns, a silent conversation of apology and forgiveness passing between them.

Steve ducks his head, unable to look any longer, the familiarity taking his breath away.

He swallows heavily when a warm hand clasps his arm. Looking up through his eyelashes, he meets brown eyes that had once encaptured him with their youthful vigor, but now had age rings around their irises and laugh lines nearly indistinguishable in the crease of her eyes.

“You’ll come back soon?” She asks him with such hesitancy, that has his chest aching.

“As soon as I can,” he answers, his hand moving to grasps hers.

They grip each other’s hand tight for a brief moment until she pulls away. Feeling the instant loss of contact deeply, he smiles reassuringly.

“Don’t you kids worry,” Olivia reassures them, smiling kindly. “I’ll take good care of the old girl, bring up a tray of food for her in an hour or so.”

“Thanks, Olivia,” Angie murmurs watching with disquiet as Olivia pushes Peggy down the hall. “See you later.”

“You better mean tomorrow, missy. If I see you here later, I will personally give you an earful,” Olivia calls back with a chuckle.

Just as they turn the corner, Peggy looks back at them and sends a small wave. Steve raises his hand to return the gesture, but she disappears before she can even possibly see it. It’s only when he glances out of the corner of his eye, does he see that Angie too has her hand floating awkwardly in the air. Their eyes meet for a brief moment before darting away with the clearing of throats.

An awkward silence fills between them, Steve with a lack of words to say to a woman who was clearly more caretaker than personal assistant to Peggy. Their eyes meet again, Steve gives her an awkward smile.

With a small exasperated sigh and a roll of blue eyes, Angie fully turns to him with her hands on her hips, “So how d’you fancy treating me to lunch, Soldier?”

* * *

 

And that’s how he finds himself on the way to lunch with Angie. A borderline stranger, who not twenty minutes ago went from spying on his visit with Peggy to snapping a quick icebreaker, “Hey Soldier, do us both a favour and cut the formal crap, I may be a lady, but I'm not your Officer in Command,” when he stiffly lead her to his car.

Following her orders and direction to a restaurant that she claimed to have “the best New York pizza outside of New York,” the silence between them filled with the sound of the heat on blast and the radio on low, he clings to a familiar topic.

“So you’re from New York?” He asks, sparing a glance at her to see her eyes catch light.

“Born and raised,” Angie says, turning to him with a proud smile.

“Brooklyn?”

She smirks, “What gave it away? The classic Brooklyn charm?”

“That and other things,” he quips, sliding easily into an odd sort of banter that surprises him, “You slip into the accent sometimes, the faster you talk.”

Angie rolls her eyes good-naturedly, “Can’t seem to get rid of it, it’s stuck with me forever. Take a right here.”

He follows her direction, and takes another glance at her, “Dyker Heights?”

She shakes her head, “Bensonhurst.”

He nods, “Red Hook.”

He catches her eye him curiously through the corner of his eyes. “What are you doing so far away from home?” She asks.

“Could ask you the same thing,” he easily evades.

He can feel her stare, where for a moment the uneasiness between them stirs once again. “Closer to work,” she finally replies and returns her gaze to the road. “Nice not to have to travel a coupla hours everyday.”

He recalls the events just prior to them stepping in the car. “Peggy,” he simply says.

“Peggy,” she breathes with a tired sigh, and points to a small alcove squished between a pharmacy and a coffee shop. “There it is.”

He easily pulls over next to the curb, near the small restaurant with a sign above it reading _Vinnie’s Pizza_ , and they silently make their way inside. Despite the small exterior, the inside expands into a comfy scattering of tables and cushioned booths, the walls paneled with wood and covered in black and white pictures, and the floor carpeted. The addition of music playing softly just below the chattering of other customers adds to the atmosphere.

Angie leads him to a booth next to the window. “They’re not strictly Italian,” she murmurs as they take their seats opposite each other and remove their jackets, “Owner’s more American than anything, but they make the meanest classic pepperoni pie that are to die for.”

He picks up a menu to peruse to do something with his hands, “Don’t let a New Yorker hear you talk like that, they’ll gut you.”

“Eh, they’ll live,” she waves a dismissive hand and flags a waiter who enthusiastically greets Angie by name in Italian.

She fluently responds with a broad smile and the pair suddenly dive into a rapid fire conversation in Italian. Steve blinks at them, catching only a few phrases and shifting in his seat when the waiter motions to him with a teasing grin. Angie responds with a friendly smack on the waiter's arm and more wild arm gestures with heated words.

It takes them a minute or two to get pleasantries out of the way to order their food, with Angie speaking for Steve, his only contribution a nod to confirm his order.

When they’re finally left alone to wait for their food, he eyes Carlo making his way behind the counter and into the kitchen, loudly calling out the order to the cooks in plain English.

With a raised eyebrow, he turns to Angie. “Come here often?” He jokes, grinning when Angie answers by rolling her eyes.

“The place may not be fully Italian but Carlo is,” she fills him in with a sardonic smile. “Claims they only hired him to fill the authenticity quota, and I’m inclined to believe him considerin’ the owner’s got as much Italian blood in his bones as I do.”

Her dry tone makes him chuckle under his breath just as Carlo returns with their sodas. They both mutter a quick thank you and promptly open their cans, and as easy as that, quiet falls on them again.

He imagines it as a rollercoaster, the beat of their banter and strained lull of silence. Not for the first time since the pair sat in his car, he wonders just what the hell he was doing.

It wasn’t hard to question, with everything they could possibly discuss leading right back to Peggy. It was more than just a sore subject between them, the way they practically ran from the retirement home in response to Peggy’s sudden relapse of memory and manner. It was history and emotional attachments, slowly severing the more time went by.

Briefly, he wonders of the toll it had on Angie; if what Olivia said was true and Angie took it upon herself to travel to Inglewood everyday to care for Peggy and keep her company. He watches the way Angie rests on her chin on her hand with the other tapping out a nervous pattern on the table while looking out the window, and he imagines for a moment just how he would fare in her position.

He grits his teeth at the discomfort growing in his stomach, at the memories of the first time Peggy looked at him and forgot his name. He swallows heavily and slowly blinks it away, turning his attention instead to the music drifting from somewhere behind the cashier counter.

Like everything else after the ice, it took some time getting used to the music of the modern world. But between the times Fury called him in for briefings on missions, he found himself turning the radio dial from what the hosts called The Golden Oldies to the modern stations out of curiosity. It also didn’t help that Natasha, on more than one occasion, reset all his favourite radio stations in his car to said modern stations.

“You like Fleetwood?”

Angie’s voice breaks him out of his reverie, meeting her amused eyes. “Fleetwood?” He repeats.

She smiles patiently, “Fleetwood Mac. Your thumb was tapping out the beat of the song.”

A flash of heat travels up his neck. “Oh,” he says dumbly, glancing down at his offending hand.

“It’s a good song,” she says, her face brightening. “You listen to ‘em before?”

He shakes his head, “Nope”, and as was his custom, he reaches into his jeans pocket, pulling out a small notebook and pencil, and slides it over to Angie.

She picks it up and flips through it with a curious frown, “You carry this with you everywhere?”

He shrugs, “Everyone recommends something at some point.”

She breathes out a small laugh. “That’s adorable,” she says and proceeds to quickly write on an empty line as the heat from his neck reaches his cheeks.

From upside down, he can make out the words _Rumours - Fleetwood Mac_. When she’s done, she flips through the rest of the notebook with a small frown. “You’ve got a lot of catchin’ up to do,” she says and with unexpected burst of energy, she drops her hands to the table and leans forward with an excited glint. “For the record, I’m pretty much an expert on all things music and entertainment.”

His mouth easily slides into an amused smile, “Now why does that sound foreboding?”

“Because you’ll be coming to me for suggestions and guidance,” she says with a cheeky grin.

He shakes his head, “I’m stuck with you, aren’t I?”

“You’re damn right,” she quips with another quick bounce forward, before returning to the notebook, adding more recommendations below her first. “I’m like super glue, can’t get rid of me. Now! There’s one song on this one that just might make you a little homesick, but no one’s recommended it yet which is a crime against humanity.”

Just as he’s making out the words _Piano Man - Billy Joel (New York State of Mind!!!)_ , the waiter returns with their food, interrupting Angie before she can finish her next addition, _The Lion K_.

Suddenly starving, the odd pair found themselves too busy eating to fill the empty air between them. Unable to help himself from peering at her from time to time, he watches as she pauses to pull off her beanie and what appeared to be entirely unnecessary glasses, tossing them on the cushion beside her, before bunching up her hair in a messy bun with the tie hanging from her wrist.

Seeing her so suddenly stripped away, and bubbling with hunger over a table piled with a ridiculous oversized pizza, Steve once again felt an understanding at Peggy’s choice of caretaker and companion. Eager and excitable, everything that wasn’t the British stoicism and valor Peggy seemed to always carry on her shoulders.

“You always inhale your food like that?”

Steve blinks, eyes meeting a smirking Angie. Playfully devious too. He responds by swallowing heavily and taking another large bite with a smirk of his own.

She laughs around her own bite of pizza, “You remind me of Peg when you eat like that.”

At the mention of the link between them, their smiles somber and their hurried chewing slow.

“You know her for a long time?” He asks once he swallows and takes a sip of his Coke.  
  
She nods, following suit and taking a sip from her own can. Briefly, he spies a tattoo placed on the inside of his wrist when an old gold watch hanging loose on her wrist slides down her arm, but quickly disappears when she drops the can.

“A long time,” she says, looking at the foggy window, her half eaten slice hanging limp in her hand.

“She seems more,” he starts and pauses when Angie’s eyes flicker to his, “more relaxed around you.”

Angie flashes him an impish smile that did well to hid the nerves behind her eyes and stiff spine. “Well, I have been told I bring out the best in people,” she says and zealously takes another bite of her pizza.

He nods, finds his nerves oddly at ease, knowing he wasn’t the only tense one in the booth.

“How’d you two meet?” He asks, dropping the rest of his crust on an empty space of the platter that’s promptly plucked up by Angie.

“You don’t eat crusts?” She stares at him in horror, waving the thin crust between them.

“Never been a fan.”

“Y’know, that’s pretty much blasphemy.”

“I’ll make sure to mention it in Confession at the next Mass.”

With a mischievous grin, he reaches for another slice while Angie narrows her eyes at him and takes a hard bite of the crust, chewing with incredulous gusto.

“So,” he continues after eating another bite. “How’d you meet her?”

Angie sighs, “Long story short, I pretty much work for her, obviously. But we met a long time ago at work, and it was sparks and sunshine ever since,” she finishes with a roll of her eyes.

He gives her a sympathetic smile at the fatigue in her tone, “Worth it?”

She matches his smile, “Every damn day.”

She finishes the crust and grabs another slice, speaking quickly, “I guess officially, you’d call me a personal assistant or somethin’ like that. She doesn’t really need one these days, but it’s nice to be takin’ care of her.”

The fondness in her voice doesn’t go past him, “Did you grow up around her?”

She snickers. He quirks an eyebrow at her, his mouth full of food. She shakes her head, “Sorry, no, it’s just...the idea of growing up around Pegs. Woulda be great, amazing even, but..."

Angie pauses, seeming to consider her words and thoughts while staring hard at the table.

Steve frowns and tilts his head lower to catch her eyes. “But, what?” He asks softly.

Slowly, she returns his curious gaze and seems to relent a little of her secrets with a small smile, “Life of a busy woman doesn’t make for a stable household,” she says cryptically.

“Work kept you both on your toes?”

“Every damn day,” she repeats with exasperated fondness.

He huffs an understanding laugh, “Couldn’t be an easy time, working as an agent under Peggy’s thumb. Fellas in the Howling Commandos used to call her a Pit Bull.”

“Agent?” she murmurs around a mouthful of food, a frown creasing her forehead.

A frown of his own makes its way on his features, “You...do know what she did, right? Before she retired?”

“‘Course. She was the big hotshot CEO,” she says with a noncommittal shrug.

It suddenly occurs to him; Peggy’s a woman who holds her secrets close to her chest, and the young woman in front of him may not be privy to those secrets. He swallows heavily.

“So you’re not an agent?”

Her frown deepens at his steely tone, “Agent? You mean like one of those customer support folks? ‘Cause I don’t think I’ve heard of any kind of agents at any phone company, then again I never did pay attention to any of that stuff. Y’know, my cousin Bernardo used to work in customer service for one of those big internet and phone places. Got the job almost a year after getting a BA in computer science, and bam - “ she lightly slams the table “ - quits two months later. One of the most patient kids I know, and even he said he couldn’t handle all the dumb questions.”

He blinks at the random anecdote, taken aback at the sudden onslaught of fast words.

“So y’know really, customer service ain’t for everybody,” she continues with breakneck speed. “I’ve never done it myself, I’m not sure if even I can handle it myself. I mean, I consider myself a nice person, but if I hear one idiot yell at me for something I can’t even fix, you better believe they’re gonna get an earful that’ll stay with ‘em for the rest of their damn natural life.”

He nods, relinquishing his crust that she quickly munches on, “Take no shit, huh?”

“You better believe it,” she says as he slowly takes a bite of a new slice. “Can you imagine Peggy in customer service? She’d probably go as far as to find whatever idiot talkin’ to her and knock ‘em right out. Guess that makes all of us lucky she shot straight for CEO, can’t imagine her as anything else,” she finally pauses to take a drink. “A _secret_ agent though! Now that would be interesting. We talkin’ CIA or MI6 here?”

He freezes, nearly choking on his food, his bulging cheeks reddening. All of sudden, Angie sputters and bursts out in hearty laughter, throwing her head back.

He manages to safely swallow with a sip of his drink and eyes Angie with a hard stare, who shakes her head at him, her laughter dying down.

“At ease, Soldier, I’m kidding,” she snickers, briefly placing her hand on his arm. “Of course I know where she worked. Think she’d hire someone and risk their safety without letting ‘em know what they were getting themselves into?”  
  
His hard stare melts into a smile that she mirrors, both knowing the answer to that question.

“So you are an agent,” he says, and tilts his head when Angie shakes her head, wiping her hands with a napkin before tossing it on the table.

“Well, I mean,” she pauses and breathes in deeply, gripping the edge of the table and leans forward. “You seem like an honest fella, Cap. I mean, that’s what Peggy told me. Truth and honor and all that jazz, so I’m gonna be honest with you, which is kinda a new thing for me.”

She looks at him with such sincerity that he slowly puts down his pizza and gives her his full attention. “All ears.”

With a slow blink, a small smile blooms on her face. “I wasn’t spying on you for SHIELD,” she simply says. “I don’t work for ‘em either, that ship sailed long ago. I was spying on you for Peggy. Because I work for her, and I wanted to make sure she would be okay. Safe.”

He nods slowly, “Mercenary?”

She shakes her head, “More of a caretaker. I haven’t done much of anything these days but to take care of Peggy.”

He’s silent for a brief moment, mulling over her confession in his head, his shoulders dropping in unexpected relief at her honesty. “Thank you for telling me.”

She gives him a sheepish smile and a shrug, and Steve wonders just what else she was capable of. What else other than the optimistic and gentle aura, and the distinct talent for spying did Peggy see in her? He’s not about to forget Angie testing out a persona during her introductions or her new delve into the territory of honesty, but if Peggy trusted her, then he’s willing to give her the benefit of a doubt.

“Peggy was right, once again,” Angie says with a grin, taking a drink of her soda.

“About what?”

“You really do bring out the truth in people,” she answers with a wry glower.

He ducks his head and scratches the back of his neck, “Well…”

She chuckles, “You think she did this on purpose? Introducing us? She’s always tellin’ me I need more friends.”

Steve’s suddenly very aware of a glowing warmth in his chest, feeling it reach out to the unanticipated blossoming solidarity between he and Angie, and wrapping around his affection for Peggy.

“You know, she’s been telling me the same thing.”

* * *

 

Later, when they’re back on the road with the addition of two takeout bundles of pizza, Angie fiddles with his Ipod.

“I can’t believe you like The Cure, but not The Smiths,” she scoffs, scrolling through his meager selection of modern songs.

“I didn’t say I didn’t like them, I said that they were kind of depressing,” he defends himself.

“And The Cure isn’t?”

“You know, if I recall correctly, I don’t remember seeing them name one of their songs _Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now_.”

“See, what you’re just tellin’ me here is that you’re in denial,” she smirks down at his Ipod when he sighs. “Who remembers the names of songs they don’t like?”

He shoots her a glare when he slows down at a red stop light, and her shoulders shake with silent laughter in response. Appearing to settle on a song, _The Very Thought of You_ by Billie Holiday fills the car as Angie places the Ipod back on the console between them with a grin, “Happy, grandpa?”

“Yes,” he answers with feigned gruffness. “Does Peggy know how much of a pain in the ass you are?” He asks fondly.

Angie snorts and looks away with forced casualness, “don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”

When the lights turn green, he continues his way down the street when it suddenly occurs to him, “Should I drop you back? At Inglewood?”

At the mention of Inglewood, Angie lifts up a shoulder in a shrug. “Olivia’ll gut me if she sees me back today,” she says, keeping up the casual pretense.

When they near a certain intersection where he knows a left turn would lead them down back to the retirement home, he slows the car and gently asks, “And Peggy?”

She’s silent for a moment, frowning out the window. “Turn right,” she finally says, her voice distant.

After a short pause, he swings the car down right. The rest of the ride is silent except for the occasional direction from Angie and the music playing from his Ipod.

In short time, she directs him down a residential road lined with trees and cobblestone sidewalks. “This is me,” she says, pointing to a row house three stories tall with fading red bricks. He stops the car in front of the house and Angie turns to him with a smile, “Thanks for the ride, Soldier.”

“Anytime,” he replies, grinning at the nickname.

Angie doesn’t move to leave the car, she instead turns down the volume of the music and looks at him with a deep inhale, as if steadying herself. “So, y’know Peggy’s birthday is next month,” she starts with a bite to her lips. “I was plannin’ on doing something nice for her, and now that you’re here, I was thinkin’ you can help me do something even better.”

Of course, Peggy’s birthday. Their shared joke regarding her age suddenly has him feeling slightly ill. “What were you planning?” He asks.

As opposed to him, Angie’s eyes light up with excitement, “Well, every other week I sing with a local band that plays at the bar I work part-time at, and I was thinkin’ I could bring ‘em over to Inglewood for a little dinner and a show. Surprise Peg and the oldtimers, and play a bunch of old tunes with dancin’ and everything.”

He quirks an eyebrow, “You can sing?”

A smug smile curls her lips, “Professionally trained and all. Was gonna be a big star on Broadway back in the day, came this close - “ she holds up a hand, her thumb and forefinger centimeters apart “- to makin’ it, but the floodlights that shoulda been heading my way never lit up.”

His eyebrows turn down in a frown, some of his curiosities regarding personas and disguises answered, more bemused than surprised at the fate of Angie’s theatre career. He can almost picture her performing with him during his time with the USO, the second choice of many other girls with similar fates who were repeatedly told no.

“What happened?” He asks, feeling like he already knows the answer.

A corner of her mouth tilts in a somber smile and a offhand shrug, “Things just caught up to me.”

Taking her evasion in stride, he nods sympathetically, “So where do I fit in with your show and dinner?”

Her smile turns soft and gentle, “You and Peggy get your dance.”

Involuntarily, his spine turns stiff and a shadow crosses his face.

Catching his expression, Angie ducks her head. “I’m sorry, I...I know it probably seems like everything happened only yesterday, even after two years, and that maybe to you I shouldn’t even know the last words you two said to each other but,” she pauses and raises her eyes to meet his. “But it’s been a damn long time for her, and I think she’d really appreciate it.”

He grits his teeth, feeling slightly abashed at his unintentional ire, and turns his gaze forward to stare at the thin layer of snow already melting on the street.

He knows it was well-intentioned, he was being offered the opportunity of closure that he could never think of buying. Not with a million other chances hanging on the balance of a single promise, and instead of thanking Angie, he nearly bites her head off just because she knows more than he imagined Peggy admitting to anyone. Dependable indeed.

With a small sigh, he shoots a patiently waiting Angie a soft smile and answers, “Alright.”

The smile that brightens her face could light up Times Square. “Great,” she breathes with relief. “Gimme your phone.”

Digging it out of his pocket, he drops it in her palm and watches as she adds her name and number to his contacts. “I’ll send you details about it when it’s all set up, plus updates on Peggy’s good days,” she says as she sends a message to her own number that prompts a chirping noise to come from one of her pockets. “And to also harass you for pizza and music recommendations.”

She hands him the phone back with a plop and a contagious grin. “You’re lucky I have unlimited texting,” he grins.

“And you’re lucky I care enough about your mental well-being to provide you the recommended daily dose of two hours of human contact,” she quips back with a wink.

He rolls his eyes without ill-intent, “Get outta my car before I kick you out.”

Angie huffs a laughs, “Your empty threats don’t scare me, Soldier Boy.” She promptly opens the door, letting a brisk breeze in the warm car. “Just one more thing though,” she says before jumping out the car with her own bundle of pizza leftovers in hand and bends down to look at him, “Gimme one second.”

With a perplexed grin, he watches her close the car door and bounce up the steps towards her front door, moments later disappearing within the threshold. He takes the short time he didn’t have before to look at the house. Tall, thin, and red with black trimmings and an empty bed of soil lay barren next to the staircase, it looks just as expensive as he imagines it to be.

For a brief moment, as Angie makes her reappearance through the door and down the steps, he wonders just how she can afford it.

When Angie opens the car door and bounces back inside does he notice there’s a pile of records in her arms. He quirks an eyebrow at her.

“I meant what I said that I’m gonna harass the hell out of you with music,” she says, her breath visible in a small fog and holds out the records to him as if she were holding a priceless artifact. “Can I trust you to take care of these?”

A glances down at the pile, the sleeve of the record laying on top had the words _Fleetwood Mac_ and _Rumours_ on it along with a man and a woman wearing dated clothing. He smiles down at its perfect condition and looks up through his eyelashes at Angie, “I’ll guard them with my life.”

“Good,” she says with a nod and a sigh, slowly handing them over to Steve. “They’re all first editions, so if I hear a scratch on any of ‘em you’re dead meat, you got that Rogers?”

Steve laughs, and salutes, “Yes, ma’am.”

Angie rolls her eyes, “Shoulda known you’d be a punk. See if I feed you any my famous manicotti on Good Friday.”

“I’m sure I’ll find a way to convince you.”

His smile broadens when she narrows her eyes and pokes him hard in the chest, “I want detailed reports on what you think of each of ‘em, capisce?”

“Yes, ma -”

“And stop callin’ me ma’am, ya damn punk,” she snaps with a quick whack on his arm, and with that, she’s out on the street and slamming the car.

“Yes, ma’am,” he calls out loud enough to hear through the door. He wears an innocent smile when she turns around to glare at him, and chuckles when she flashes him the middle finger.

A warm fondness lodges itself in his chest, watching her turn back around with mirthful laughter. He waits for her to safely make her way back into the house, waving at her once she’s through the door. She returns the gesture with a grin and another eye roll.

The door closes and the fondness sits and settles, content to remain unmoving indefinitely.

* * *

Later, when he’s listening to _Rumours_ on his record player for the second time while eating the rest of the pizza, he sends Angie a text.

_You were right, I do like Fleetwood Mac_

Five minutes later, while he’s looking up the lyrics on his laptop, his phone chirps with a new message.

_told you! i’m never wrong :D_

He snorts, even through text she came off as bubbly. A second later, another message pops up below.

_but you’re forgetting the big picture here soldier. detailed reports! gonna need more than that :) :) :)_

He slowly sighs, briefly contemplating the openness of this newfound friendship he suddenly found himself in. Before he can come to any sort of conclusion, he mutters, “Quid pro quo,” types out his reply and sends it before he can stop himself.

_Like a heartbeat, drives you mad in the stillness of remembering what you had and what you lost..._

Taking the leap off the edge of a proverbial cliff had never felt more nerve-wracking, and he had done his fair share of jumping off actual cliffs. He putters around while waiting for a reply, carefully shuffling through the other records Angie had lent him. It wasn’t the first time he found the modern conventions of long distant communication abnormally trying, considering how before the slow pace of letters left one waiting for weeks at a time.

Three and a half minutes later, his phone chirps with Angie’s response. He nearly grimaces at himself with the speed at which he picks up his phone. Nevertheless, the corner of his mouth lifts when he reads her response.

_i changed my mind, you get as much manicotti as you want_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit gets real folks. All you need to know is that I listened to specific parts of the Moon OST while writing.
> 
> thank you theseerasures for beta-ing and keeping me from panicking to death.

True to her word, Angie calls and texts him everyday with updates on Peggy, along with the promised details of Peggy’s birthday. She also uses the time to force him to exchange notes and opinions on the records she had lent him, and to watch shows and movies together through the phone.

Her correspondence never wavers, even on the days he was called in for missions; he would come home with an inbox full of messages about Peggy, and random anecdotes and photos of Angie’s day. It was a routine he was quickly becoming grateful for, having something to look forward to after returning home from a mission, finding small comfort in the semblance of normalcy, detached from the whirlwind storm of his life.

Except sometimes the lines cross when he least expects it to, when he’s reminded just why he and Angie have managed to form such a fast bond.

His phone sits heavy in his pocket, his awareness of it and his recently received message burning through his jeans and into his skin, weighing heavily on him as he rests on his bike in the parking lot of Inglewood.

_morning. not a good day today, she had a bad relapse. working through it though, at least she’s eating. come home safe from saving the world._

It was short and held few details, unlike Angie’s usual characteristically thorough descriptions and notes of Peggy’s day. He had felt a knot of guilt and worry tie up in his chest when he woke up midday to read it.

It was only a few weeks since his last visit, having missed his previous opportunities due to Fury sending him out on mission after mission. It was happening with more frequency as of late, and yet the more time went by, he still couldn’t shake his perpetuating reservations regarding the agency.

He had just returned the previous night from a mission in Madrid that felt longer than the four days it took to complete, unable stop the bitterness at the sparsity of the intel his team received from SHIELD’s analysts that nearly cost a few members their lives.

He had returned home from his debriefing in the dead of night, brimming with the need to punch something. Instead he had stripped off his armoured suit, changed into workout clothes, and went for a long run. He had returned home exhausted, and promptly passed out, having been too upset to remember to update Angie on his return home.

In no time at all after waking up, he had dragged his bike out of winter storage and drove straight to Inglewood. And now, sitting there with a weariness in his bones that should have receded with his night’s rest, he stares up at the building, at the floor he knows Peggy resides on. Not for the first time, he feels the urge to turn back around.

Instead, he digs through his pocket for his phone and sends Angie a quick message, mentioning he’s outside and hops off the bike.

Digging his hands into his pockets, he trods slowly towards the building, taking in the new growth spurt of residents wandering and lounging around the grounds. They move with unhurried leisure and practised ease that it makes Steve wonder how there was a world of danger and secrets beyond the groves of Rock Creek. Nonetheless, he still feels as if he’s walking straight into a warzone.

When he makes it inside, Angie’s already sitting in the foyer waiting for him, bouncing her knee and biting her nails. When she spots him, she jumps up with a smile and marches over to him.

“You’re back,” she says with a relieved sigh and before he knows it, she’s wrapping her arms around his neck.

It takes him a moment to respond and wrap his arms around her waist, but when he does, he realizes not only is this the first time they’ve seen each other since that first day, but the first time they’ve ever hugged.

“Didn’t you get the memo,” she whispers into his neck, and that ever present knot tightens in his chest when he hears the vulnerability in her voice.

He nods, his cheek rubbing against her hair and carefully holds her tighter, “Can’t just let you take on the cavalry alone now, could I?”

The breath of her chuckle tickles his neck and she pulls back to palm his cheeks, her eyes shining. “Y’know you can be a punk for not following my instructions and tellin’ me when you come back, but you can be a good egg sometimes.”

He gives her a sheepish smile as her hands pull away from his cheeks, “I got in last night. I was gonna tell you, but I passed out before I could remember.”

Her eyebrows crease into a frown, “Rough time?”

Steve nods his head to the side, “Could have been better.”

Glancing around, he suddenly realizes they were standing in the middle of the foyer as if they were in the middle of an overdue reunion. Which, when he gently coaxes her towards the elevators, he realizes is an accurate summation, if the way her hand latches on to his as if it were an anchor was any indication. He responds in kind and faintly squeezes back while pressing the elevator button.

“How about the home front?” He asks as they watch the floor numbers drop. Angie glances at him with a quirked eyebrow. “How is she today?”

She turns forward to watch the doors open and pulls him in without answering. He frowns at her as she pushes the button for the fourth floor with more vigor than necessary, ”Ang?”

Steve watches her swallow heavily and grit her teeth at the closed doors. He turns to face her and opens his mouth to speak but her next words stop him, “She forgot her name.”

Her grip on his hand turns white knuckled, he looks down at their interconnected limbs and feels his stomach twist and his skin turn cold. “What else?” He chokes out.

A pained look crosses Angie’s face, her eyes unblinking with glistening intensity. “She doesn’t...remember much.”

It’s almost strange, the way he can look at Angie now and see the unspoken truth. She doesn’t remember me. She doesn’t remember SHIELD. She doesn’t remember you. Words all unsaid, and yet despite their lack of time spent together, Steve can read it behind Angie’s eyes, blue and burning.

“You get used to it,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper. “After a coupla times.”

His spine straightens, feeling his own eyes burn. “You shouldn’t have to,” he whispers back.

The elevator dings and the doors open. They slowly make their way out and down the carpeted hall, warm clammy hands still connected. He feels his breath catching in his throat the closer they get to Peggy’s room, the tension buzzing in the air between them.

A few residents and nurses pass them by, paying no attention to the pair walking down the hall as if they were walking to their doom. The numbers on the doors counted up and up until they both paused in front of a cream coloured door with the black print of _411_ painted on the door.

A shiver runs down his spine as they stare at the door with increasing apprehension. He doesn’t even try to begin to understand how Angie could get used to anything about this. No amount of constant days of caretaking and assisting could prepare him for Peggy to suddenly look up at him with empty, unrecognizing eyes.  
  
Angie suddenly turns to him, blinking rapidly with a dazed expression, “Did you eat yet for the day? You kinda look like you just rolled outta bed.”

His eyes flickers to hers, and with a once-over her, finds it unnecessary to mention how the braid hanging over her shoulder is loose and messy, and that the bags under her eyes are more prominent today than a few weeks ago. He releases a trembling sigh. “Just some cereal,” he says, feeling slightly dazed himself.

She nods resolutely, “You look like starving. I’ll go bring up a tray of somethin’ for you, lunch is still bein’ served downstairs.”

He purses his mouth, “You’re not coming in with me?”

Angie glances at the door, “You’ve faced gun barrels, and swarms of aliens and conservatives, Soldier Boy. Don’t tell me you can’t face a senile old woman all by your lonesome.”

He stares at her with a heavy frown at her sudden offhand demeanor, refraining from rebutting when she turns back to him, her eyes attempting to desperately hide her grief.

“Just gimme a few minutes, and I’ll be right back with some food, alright?” She says and she releases his hand and places her own trembling pair on his shoulders. “You look like shit, Steve. Someone’s gotta take care of you.”

His face softens with compassion, “And who’s taking care of you?”

Her face flickers with a wince, her hands dropping from his shoulders as she takes a step back and then another, until she’s slowly making her way backwards to the elevators. “I get by on my own. Always have.”

With his heart sinking to his stomach, he watches as she turns around and walks away, completely bypassing the elevators to the stairs, disappearing down the wooden steps. He takes a moment to consider whether or not he should wait for her to return before making his way in. He clenches his fists and berates himself, finding himself stuck in a familiar spot with a tug at his stomach pulling back to the elevators and another at his chest, pushing him towards the door.

He takes a step toward, foolishly feeling his fist raise to knock on the door and drops it with a scowl and a sigh. Angie was right, her words mirroring his thoughts to his first visit. His feet were growing roots to the carpet below his shoes, stuck in a loop of terror and determination.

He’s suddenly saved of finding a way to enter the room when the door swings open, causing his heart to nearly jump out of his ribcage. The orderly from his last visit, Olivia, pauses in the middle of the door with a tray in hand piled with an empty plate and cup, surprised by his appearance.

“Oh! Hello,” she says with a blink and a warm smile, dimples sinking in her cheeks.

He returns the smile with a nod, “Ma’am.”

“Are you here to visit Ms. Carter?”

Involuntarily, his eyes stray to look over Olivia’s shoulders and he blinks away with a nod. “Yes, ma’am. How is she doing?”

A shadow crosses Olivia’s face and her smile droops into a dismal frown, “I’m afraid she isn’t having one of her good days, hon. Couldn’t even remember Angie, the poor kid. Where is she anyways?”

Steve glances back down the hall to the stairs, shoving his hands into his pockets. “She went to grab some food for me.”

Olivia shakes her head, pursing her mouth. “Always taking care of someone, that one,” she says, and looks over her shoulder into the room for a brief moment and sighs. “Well, come on in, I’ll introduce you.”

With a clench of his jaw, he feels his feet move forward, pulling on the proverbial roots attached to his legs. He steps past the threshold, Olivia guiding him in the suit with a hand on the back of his shoulder, and he strides past a small alcove of a kitchenette into a cozy den.

“Don’t think I caught your name, hon,” she says, placing the tray in her hand on the counter in the small kitchen and stepping to him.

“Uh, Steve,” he says simply, not feeling up to complicating matters further with his historical status. He holds out a hand that Olivia promptly shakes, and she eyes him with a curious grin.

“Steve, huh? Familiar name, familiar face,” she drawls.

His cheeks heat up, and he shrugs unconvincingly. “I get that a lot.”

Olivia appears to concede, giving him a break with a grin and a twinkle in her brown eyes. “Oh, I bet,” she says and leads him to a door that was cracked open by a few inches. He could just make out the sound of a television on low, and wind from an open window gently swaying the curtains in a dance. He swallows a lump in his throat.

“Now, she’s just had lunch and a bath, so she should be good for now. If anything, there’s an emergency button on the side of her left nightstand. You push that and nurses will be with you before you know it,” she says softly to him, and slowly pushes open the door when he nods. “Hello again, Ms. Carter. You got yourself a visitor here that’s come to see you.”

He follows in after Olivia, his heart beat a crescendo of noise in his ears when his eyes lands on Peggy enveloped in her bed; her eyes staring at a television screen off in the corner, and half buried under a navy Columbia sweatshirt and the blanket strewn across her lap. It seems nearly impossible to believe, but she appears to look smaller since the last time he’d seen her.

When he comes to stand in front of her bed, her eyes flicker from the television, to Olivia, and finally to him, staring at him with blank unfamiliarity. “Hello,” she says, and for a moment, he wishes he was still suspended in time.

“Hello,” he says, his voice cracking, his tongue feeling heavy.

He feels Olivia’s sympathetic stare, “Ms. Carter, this is Steve,” she says and comes to stand next to him. “You remember Steve, don’t you? He’s your friend.”

A small frown creases Peggy’s forehead, her eyes a blank canvas as she searches his face. “I’m...not sure,” she says slowly.

Olivia sighs. “I’ll leave you two now to catch up,” she says and places a hand on his shoulder. “Remember, if anything, just press the button.”

He nods and shoots her a grateful smile, “Thank you.”

She smiles back, doleful with familiarity, as if she’s seen this a hundred times before, and with that she retreats out the room. With the sound of the door of the suit closing shut, Steve suddenly finds himself alone with a woman who could have been the love of his life, looking at him with unabashed curiosity.

Exhaling slowly, he moves around her bed to sit in a vacant, but well used chair next to her, with Peggy eyeing him the entire time. He ducks his head, at a loss for words and unable to meet her gaze. Abruptly, he chokes on a mad bout of laughter at a sudden flash of memories.

_You have no idea how to talk to women, do you?_

His bites his tongue and looks up through his eyelashes to finally meet her eyes. He smiles gently at her and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, “Hi.”

Her eyes continue to search his face. “Hello,” she whispers. “Have I met you before?”

Steve doesn’t know how to respond; if he should say yes, she’s known him for decades, or that she’s met him for the first time more than three times now, or that they were strangers, or…

He swallows heavily and holds out a hand, “I’m Steve.”

Peggy looks down at his hand and slowly reaches out to take it, her hand warm against his skin. “Peggy,” she says with a polite smile, “At least...that’s what I’ve been told.”

She pulls her hand away and rests it on her lap as Steve’s hand, left empty and cold, clenches into a fist, his skin pulling tight against his knuckles before relaxing as it hangs over his knees. “We’ve met before,” he says, his voice thick with emotion.

“Quite a few times, I imagine,” she says, her courteous smile falling into a frown at the tone of his voice.

“Only on your bad days,” he says, flashing her a grin that felt more like a grimace, immediately feeling foolish at his response.

Her frown deepens, and she turns to stare at the wall. “There was a girl here earlier, seemed somewhat devastated when I couldn’t remember her name.”

He grits his teeth, a pang of concern for Angie pressing against his chest. “Do you remember it now?” He asks softly.

Her eyes distant, she shakes her head and turns back to the television that was playing an old black and white film he doesn’t recognize. “She was rather beautiful, though,” she continues with an odd sigh. “You should have seen her, had the loveliest blue eyes. Quite like yours, actually. She reminded me of someone...”

He tilts his head, “Who did she remind you of?”

“A ghost,” she says wistfully, “She used to sing and dance for me.”

He blinks with confusion; it isn’t the first time he’s left to wonder at the last seventy years of Peggy’s life. He could barely get a word out SHIELD that wasn’t her dossier, much less from the tightlipped woman before him slowly turning senile. The admission of a mysterious woman in Peggy’s life, despite the unfortunate way it was divulged, leaves him feeling oddly envious.

Just then, the sound of a door creaking open and closed, and soft footsteps padding across the den to the bedroom has him straightening with a worried frown. The form of Angie appears in the doorway, leaning on the frame and knocking lightly against the wood, her other hand holding two sandwiches in saran wrap.

“Knock, knock,” she says with a bright smile that Steve’s frown deepens at.

To his surprise, Peggy blinks at Angie, a small blush colouring her cheeks. “Oh", she says faintly, “You again.”

Angie only beams at Peggy, and makes her way over to his side of the bed, plopping down on the edge of the mattress. “Don’t think can keep me away, English. You can’t get rid of me,” she says with a wink that Peggy blinks again at, before Angie turns to him and hands him the sandwiches with a regretful shrug. “This is the best I could get, they cleaned up almost everythin’ before I could grab somethin’ good for you.”

His smiles gratefully down at the food, his stomach clenching hungrily at the sight of it. “Better than nothing,” he says and smiles at her. “Thank you, Angie.”

As he tears open one sandwich and bites into it, Peggy’s eyes darts between the two, “You’ve already met?”

When they both turn to her, her eyes dart again and her blush deepens. A mischievous grin fills Angie’s face. “Oh yeah, some gorgeous gal introduced us a few weeks ago, and now we’re planning on getting married.”

Steve quirks an incredulous eyebrow at Angie taking advantage of his food-filled mouth, but she only winks at him and turns back to a frowning Peggy. “That seems rather...quite sudden, don’t you think?”

“I know love at first sight when I feel it, English.”

Angie only grins when Peggy’s frown somehow manages to deepen, “You can’t honestly believe in that nonsense, do you?”

Angie squints playfully at Peggy, and just like that, the pair fall into heated debate. Steve suddenly finds himself on the periphery once again as he eats, feeling oddly content to watch them banter with one sandwich on his lap and the other in his hands.

He takes the time to search Angie, looking for any of her previous hesitation and brittleness, and finds none; the time she had taken to retrieve food for him, used to assemble herself. It was a wonder she never made it to the Great White Way.

Peggy on the other hand, brightens in a way he’s come to expect when talking to Angie. He takes the smallest comfort he can, knowing that some miniscule part of Peggy still reaches out to Angie even if five minutes ago Peggy couldn’t remember her.

He’s nearly done eating when a light kick to his shins makes him look up at the pair. “Earth to Soldier,” Angie says, her black converse clad foot coming to rest lightly on his knee. “What d’you believe? Think Shakespeare was talkin’ shit when he wrote Romeo and Juliet?”

Steve blinks, having no comprehension on how the two managed to get to the topic of Shakespeare. He looks to Peggy, who shakes her head with a small grin and an eyeroll, seeming more like herself than she did ten minutes ago. “English wasn’t my best subject,” he simply replies with a grin.

Angie follows Peggy’s lead and rolls her eyes. “No help at all, this one,” she says, jostling his knee with her foot.

“Well, at least we agree on something. Romeo and Juliet was a depressing affair,” Peggy says with a twist of her mouth.

“You just said a second ago you didn’t remember it.”

“Well, thanks to your loquacious summary, it seems rather enough to pass judgement on,” Peggy replies with a sly grin.

Angie turns to him with exasperated yet fond smile, “D’you see what I have to deal with?”

“You’re one to talk. Am I to expect to receive news of the loss of your tragic lives any day now?”

Unexpectedly, Steve bursts out in laughter, burying his face into his hand. A lightness falls on his shoulders, finding it easy to picture what life would be like with the two woman before him if only Peggy were seventy years younger.

He feels his heart reaching out to both of them, at the momentary miraculousness of their banter. “We’re not getting married,” he says, looking up at the pair of them, smiling curiously at him.

Angie narrows her eyes at him and mouths _traitor_ as Peggy feigns a relieved sigh and sends a hard stare at Angie, who shrugs nonchalantly and casually looks at her nails. “You’re a wicked one, aren’t you?”

Angie scrunches her nose at Peggy, “It comes with the package, you get a thirty day warranty. Take it or leave it.”

Suddenly, a scream comes from the TV that makes Angie jump hard enough for her foot to spring from his knee. She inhales sharply and shuts her eyes tight, stiffening on the bed as her shoe falls to the carpet with a muffled thump.

Immediately, he bounces forward and places a hand on her knee with a worried frown, “Hey. You alright?”

Peggy inclines as close as she can, grasping Angie’s arm, “Darling?”

Angie blinks her eyes open with a frown and sighs. “Yeah...yeah, I’m fine,” she waves them off, her posture relaxing.

He and Peggy share a glance, and before he can that appreciate that sudden link between them, Peggy returns her worried frown at Angie and asks, “Are you sure?”

Angie rolls her eyes. “Oh, geez, yeah. Can’t a girl be a little jumpy?” She says with a sheepish chuckle and turns to the TV in the corner that had gone forgotten during their visit. “What the heck are you even watchin’ anyways?”  
  
“One of those Hitchcock films,” Peggy says with a weary glance to the television, as a decayed woman rocked in a chair, the swinging lightbulb above her head creating eerie shadows on her skeletal form.

“I haven’t seen this one,” Steve says, tipping his head, perplexed as a man came bounding through a door wearing a woman’s nightgown with a knife in hand.

“Well, there’s no point now,” Angie says with a melodramatic sigh and a gesture to the TV. “It’s spoiled for you.”

“You know, they are marathoning his films today,” Peggy says with a coy grin when Angie looks at her. “The one with that Grant fellow and the plane is next.”

Angie’s eyes light up with a smile. “Perfect,” she exclaims and beams at Steve. “Make yourself comfortable, Soldier. You’re about to have a hell of a time.”

Steve leans back in his chair, stretching his legs out under Peggy’s bed and watches with a fond smile as Angie crawls her way up next to Peggy to lie next to her.

“You don’t mind do you, English?” Angie asks, more preoccupied with the TV than with Peggy’s answer.

Steve eyes Peggy shifting over slightly, her shoulders tensing when Angie sinks into the pillow, a faint blush returning to her cheeks. When she suddenly looks up and meets his gaze, her blush darkens and she quickly looks away. “No,” she murmurs.

He laughs under his breath, and rests his head on the back of the chair, “So either one of you gonna tell me what the hell I just witnessed?”

“Nope,” Angie answers, popping her mouth on the _‘p’_ sound.

“And you’re not gonna tell me what the next one is about either, are you?”

“Nope,” she repeats with a devious grin. “But for the record, I’m still gonna make you watch this one.”

“For the record, I’m still hungry.”

Angie sighs with exasperation as Peggy chuckles, having finally relaxed her shoulder against Angie. “Was he always this much a pain in the ass, Peg?” Angie asks as she gives him a mock glare.

The lull of silence from Peggy has them both pausing, and Steve’s breath catches in his throat. Slowly, they both turn to Peggy to find her staring with distant eyes at her lap. Instead of answering or giving them any response at all, she slowly looks up from her lap to the television.

Angie’s the first to look away, exhaling sharply as if she was punched in the chest, her animated disposition stripping away to reveal the devastation written behind her eyes that he had discerned in the hallway earlier. With a trembling sigh, he reaches out a hand to rest on Angie’s. She turns her palm up and links their fingers, grasping his hand tight, and looks up at him with a grateful tremulous smile.

For a moment, they were given the opportunity to believe that everything was fine. That their worlds wasn’t imploding on them and Peggy could look up at them any moment and smile with familiarity. Steve can’t help the gratefulness swelling within him, that he was given that moment to hold on to.

Nonetheless, looking at Angie now as she turns back to the TV to watch the opening credits, he finds himself not believing her words. Not with the way she lay stiff on the bed next to Peggy, with Steve’s hand still entwined with hers. There was no possible way someone could grow used to this.

* * *

 

Later, when the film ends and Angie painfully coaxes a drowsy Peggy’s head off her shoulders, is when they make their tentative goodbyes. They make promises to visit soon again, before leaving a frowning Peggy on the brink of sleep in her bed, looking more forlorn than Steve imagined she would show if she were younger or any more awake.

Angie’s hand had barely left his, their hands grasped tight as they walk through the building and out into crisp twilight air. “Do you think she remembered anything?” Angie asks, her voice tight with emotion, her other hand gripping the strap of her backpack strewn across one shoulder with white knuckles.

“You want the bad or the ugly answer,” he responds, leading her to his bike.

A puff of air escapes her. “She’s getting worse.”

A thought suddenly occurs to him, “What if she’s…”

Angie turns to him, frowning as they pause in the middle of the parking lot, “What?”

He looks around, his body taut with nerves, before meeting her eyes, “Her birthday. What if isn’t a good day?”

Her mouth lifts into a slow watery smile. “The show must go on,” she says with a despondent shrug.

With the brisk wind whipping at their hair, they continue their way through the lot to his bike. When Angie spots it, she halts and quirks an eyebrow at him, an uneven grin finally making it’s way on her lips, “Really? Midlife crisis much?”

Steve purses his mouth at her as she releases his hand to walk around the bike, appraising it, “Well, I wouldn’t call it a midlife crisis-”

“D’you even got a helmet?” She interrupts him, resting her hands on her hips with a stern glare. When he responds with an abashed grin, she shakes her head and drops her hands. “I’m gonna take that as a no. Well? What are you waiting for? Hop on ya damn punk and take me to your place, I gotta see if your crisis extends to your decor.”

* * *

When he’s finally leading her through the door of his apartment, Angie ends a call after ordering them Chinese takeout from a local restaurant. “You’re gonna love their dim sum dumplings, they’re amazing,” she says, pocketing her phone. “Made Peg try it one day, said they were the best thing she’d eaten since the last meal I cooked her.”

Steve snorts and clicks on the lights in the foyer. “I’ll take your word for it,” he says as he locks the door.

Without prompting, Angie peels off her converse and pads further into the apartment to drop her bag on his couch and stand in the middle of the living room.

“Make yourself at home,” he jests, pulling off his shoes, chuckling when Angie pokes her tongue out at him and places her hands on her hips, surveying the open space.

“Hm, not bad as I thought, Rogers,” she says, shooting him a grin. “Not as shabby as I thought it would be.”

“I had a little help,” he admits, walking towards her with his hands in his pockets.

Angie snorts, “What? SHIELD got a decoratin’ team now?”

“More like...a transitioning team?” He says, pulling a hand out of his pocket to scratch the back of his neck. “For expat staff and -”

“A man out of time?” Angie completes for him with a devious grin, as she meanders around his apartment on a self guided tour.

He narrows his eyes and tilts his head at her with a droll glare. “Keep up the talk Martinelli, see what happens.”

Angie only chuckles, “Gonna threaten to kick me out again?”

“You’re cutting it a little close.”

She turns to him with a less than impressed smirk, but her gaze flickers near the wall she had missed before and her eyes light up. “Is that…”

She marches toward the wall, moving to stand in front where he had rested his shield the night before. He moves to stand closer to her, watching as she looks down at it with wide eyed reverence. She glances up at him, suddenly noticing his closer presence.

“Can I?” She asks, gesturing to it. Smiling, Steve nods and leans his shoulder against the wall.

With two hands, she picks it up and grins with a breathy chuckle. “It’s lighter than I expected,” she says, staring closely at it, her wandering eyes appraising every scratch of paint.

“Try it on,” Steve offers, chuckling when Angie bounces on the spot, and slips the strap on her left arm.

“Holy shit, wow!” She laughs and strikes a pose at him, holding the shield out in front of her, “Whaddya gonna do now, Soldier? Gonna threaten me again?”

“I’m terrified,” he deadpans, more entertained than anything.

She laughs again and dashes past him, “Where’s your bathroom? I gotta check this out!”

“To your left,” he calls after her when she disappears down the hall.

In the time Angie takes to check herself and the shield out in the bathroom, their takeout arrives. He promptly pays the delivery man with a tip, and calls out to Angie, “Food’s here!”

As he’s taking the food out of the paper bags and setting them on the coffee table in the living room, he spies Angie padding towards him in his periphery, “Hey, what do you want to drink? I got beer if you want.”

When she doesn’t answer him, he looks up to find her staring down at the shield with a distant frown. “Ang?” He says softly.

She looks up at with a daze blink, “Huh?”

He gestures to the food, “Beer?”

Her eyes flicker to the food as if she were just noticing it was there and shakes her head, “No...no thanks,” she says, a smile suddenly brightening her face, “One thing you should know about me is that I don’t drink.”

He nods sympathetically at the admission, “Well lucky for you, I can’t get drunk.”

She gives him a bemused smile. “Then why do you have beers?” She asks, and with more care necessary for a nearly indestructible piece of metal, she places the shield back against the wall.

“I get a lot of guests. Or one really. They like to bring their own alcohol, you should see how much vodka I have in my cupboard.”

Angie nods, pulling her lips between with teeth, her eyes distant as they peer down at the shield, her arms folded in front of her. Steve tilts his head, concerned at her whiplash demeanor.

“Hey,” he says softly, making her look up at him with a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, “What’s wrong?”

Her throat bobs heavily, her arms wrapping tighter around herself. “Think we could listen to some music while we eat?” She asks instead.

After a beat, he nods and points towards his record player, “Over there.”

Without another word, Angie turns to shuffle through the albums she lent him. With a frown, he walks back into the kitchen to grab them sodas when the soft notes of one of his Benny Goodman albums begins to play. Angie reappears around the corner of the living room wall and collapses on his sofa with an exhale, grabbing the remote on the coffee table to turn on his TV.

He steps in the living room and sinks next to Angie onto the couch, placing the two cans on the coffee table as she already starts digging into her food with chopsticks in one hand and the other flipping the channel to what he recognized as the film _Rebecca_ on mute.

“I hope you realize we’re watchin’ The Lion King after this,” Angie says, tossing the remote on the couch and stuffing food in her mouth.

“Let me guess,” Steve replies, digging into his own food, “You brought it in that bag of yours.”

“Look at that, you already know me so well.”

He nods and peeks a glance at her, “Well enough to know something’s bothering you, at least.”

She snorts with derision into her food and mutters to herself, “Observant too, what a catch.”

“Ang-”

She interrupts him with a hard stare, “You do everythin’ Fury tells you to do?”

The question catches him off guard, “You know Fury?”

“That isn't relevant, Steve,” Angie bristles.

“No, I don’t,” he answers with a sigh and ducks his head, “Never been really good at following orders.”

Angie rolls her eyes. “Never would have guessed it,” she says, raising her feet to the couch, cradling her container of food between her knees and chest as she continues to eat.

Steve nudges her ribs with his elbow, “You never told me what’s bothering you.”

She sighs, “You looked liked shit when you walked into Inglewood today.”

His shoulders drop. “Yeah, you already told me that once or twice.”

Angie pauses her eating and looks up at the TV, staring blankly at it. “Do you ever think about…stopping. Stop fighting and nearly dying all the time, and just...try to live a normal life? Do you ever think about what you would do?”

His mind briefly turns to Madrid and of running in front an agent, shielding him from an explosion that had went off just a few feet away. Of flying into a white cold expanse of tundra, closer and closer, the fate of New York lying nearly insurmountable at his back. He grits his teeth and shakes his head.

“No,” he answers, his voice gravelly. Angie turns to him and meets his gaze, her eyes glistening. “Couldn’t stop myself if I tried.”

Angie shakes her head at him with a small smile, “Peggy did mention you tried enlisting a coupla times during the war. Lyin’ on your enlistment forms and everything.”

Steve gives her an innocent shrug, “Don’t know where she got that from.”

Angie snorts, “You of all people would try to enlist for the army five times. I’ve never seen someone who wasn’t me so ready to punch a Fox anchor as much as you.”

Steve purses his mouth, “You try talking to them then, see how you feel.”

She snorts, “Over my dead body.”  
  
They fall into a silence, the pair eating with gusto while watching the film with captions scrolling by and Benny Goodman playing softly. When the first side of the record comes to an end with the sound of light scratching, Steve gets up to flip it to side B.

“It just occured to me,” Angie says from behind him as he carefully sets down the needle, music drifting back into the room. “Do you even know how to dance?”

He tenses, slowly turning back to her, “Um.”

Her eyes brighten and she laughs at his startled expression, “Oh my god, you don’t.”

Steve folds his arms, and pretends that he isn’t actually pouting, “Well it’s not like I had time to practice.”

Angie laughs again, dropping her food on the coffee table, and bouncing up from the couch, “Okay, we’re doing this right now.”

His eyes widen, his torso leaning away from Angie as she steps in front of him, “Now?”

She gives him an exasperated look and pulls at his arms, his heart speeding up, “Yes, now.”

With a frown and his cheeks burning, he stiffly allows her to move one hand to her waist and the other held up next to them, grasped in her own hand. “Would you relax,” she breathes exasperatedly with a smile. “I'm not gonna bite. If you don’t wanna step on Peggy’s toes, then do as I say. It’s just a little two step and a little sway.”

He nods slowly down at her, smiling nervously. For the next few minutes he follows her instructions, periodically stepping on her toes and making minor mistakes that she corrects with quick mutters. Soon enough, they’re slowly swaying around the small space of his living room, with Angie’s forehead resting against his shoulder and his hand resting against the small of her back.

“See? It's not so hard after a while,” she murmurs, softly humming along to the music. “Just remember what I showed you, and you’ll kill it.”  
  
His heart rate had slowed and his cheeks cooled at this point, more comfortable now that he’s familiar with the steps. “Thank you,” he says, resting his cheek against her head, his words holding a deeper meaning than a brief dance education.

Angie breaths out a laugh, “Any time.”

“I’m not sure what I would do,” he says, continuing their conversation from earlier with a swallow he’s sure Angie hears as she slows their dancing. “If I stopped fighting. I don’t know.”

“You could go back to school,” Angie softly replies.

“School?”

“Yeah, I went back, after Broadway. I recommend Columbia, it’s pretty great.”

He smiles, remembering the navy sweater Peggy had worn today. “Columbia?”

They’ve stopped dancing at this point, just gently holding one another. “Yeah, it...it helps. Getting back out there. Just like riding a bike,” she says, her arms moving to hug him fully around his waist, tucking her head under his chin.

“I never did learn how to ride a bicycle,” he chuckles, embracing her back.

“You’re kiddin’ me,” Angie deadpans and sighs when he shakes his head. “I’ll teach you then.”

He pauses for a moment, mulling it over his head. “I don’t think I want to,” he says softly, his smile faltering, knowing he wasn’t talking about bikes anymore.

She hugs him tighter and whispers back, “I know.”

* * *

A few days later, he’s at the library when Angie sends him a text that has his stomach flipping.

_so a little bird told me the smithsonian is having a captain america exhibit_

He blinks at his phone before looking up at the books surrounding him on the floor in the little nook where he had settled himself, feeling quite comfortable where he is. It isn’t the first time he’s heard of it, with thrilled news anchors discussing its record breaking weekend opening draw, and agents at the Triskelion openly peering at him as he passes by.

He quickly texts back.

_Funny, it told me the library has a good selection of books about Sputnik._

She responds seconds later.

_we’re hanging out today soldier. just you and me. i’ve got my orders from the one and only, and now so do you. where are you??_

Smiling, he shakes his head and responds with his location. Not too long after, when he’s signing out a book about the space race and the Soviet’s first female cosmonaut, a figure hovers over his shoulder.

“Shouda known you’d be a nerd for space,” Angie says and grins when he tightens his lips at her.

“If I recall, _you_ were the one who went on a rant about the vastness of space,” Steve replies, and grins politely at the intern behind the desk as she passes him back the books with a bemused smile.

Angie huffs, “So? We were watching _Star Trek_ , whaddya expect a girl to do?”

He rolls his eyes with an affectionate grin and marches her out the building, but not before she makes a teasing quip at him about Mrs. Keller, groaning when the librarian really does turn out to be a forty-eight year old married woman with three kids.

Now that the weather had taken a turn for warm, with the grass and trees beginning to bloom, they decide to walk their way to the museum down Constitution Avenue, with Angie filling him in on the time to arrive for Peggy’s birthday and what to wear, and how well the rehearsals were going.

“So you’re in a band?”

She chuckles, “You kiddin’? I’m more like a featured guest, they play at the bar every weekend and sometimes I sing with ‘em. Bring in a big crowd on my days, so they owe me,” she says with a proud grin.

He quirks an eyebrow at her, “Not too modest, are you?”

“Only on my good days,” she shrugs playfully and with a glance at him out of the corner of her eyes, she looks to the ground with a unexpected bashfulness, “I’m more of a better dancer than singer actually. Worked for years at it. The training was hard but...”

Angie trails off, her eyes raising to the buildings they were passing by, their towering bricks and stone casting sharp shadows on her face. A frown creases Steve’s brows and he lightly grasps her hand hanging limp at her side.

She looks down at their hands for a brief moment and turns to him with a sigh and a reserved smile. “I like singing better,” she finishes.

When they near the National Mall, Angie pulls him in another direction, away from the growing traffic where the Captain America exhibit was being held in another museum, and towards the National Gallery of Art. “Peg told me you like to draw, I’ve been meanin’ to drag you here for days,” she says as he sends a grateful smile in her direction.

She doesn’t see it and continues to tug on his hand through the doors. Angie pays for their tickets and together they walk slowly through the museum, occasionally pausing in front of paintings and sculptures to look more closely at them, with Angie or Steve frequently murmuring commentary.

When they’re sitting on a bench in the middle of a vast room covered in paintings, their shoulders brushing together, he finds himself more busy sketching Angie in his little notebook than watching the artwork. Her profile slowly appears on the paper with every careful flick of his wrist as she stares up into Degas’ _The Dance Class_ , her eyes faraway and a crease between her brow.

Next to Angie’s profile, he begins another sketch, pulling from memory Peggy’s smile, her young fierce eyes looking at him with such faith that had him feeling like he could freefall for the rest of time.

As he sketches, he feels Angie’s arm slip through his and rest her head on his shoulder, looking down at his notebook. When he’s done, he feels Angie sigh.

“I thought she was gonna live forever,” she whispers, her other hand reaching out to graze the edges of the notebook, and Steve feels his heart clench, as if Angie had reached out and shocked it with the tips of her fingers.

He nods, unable to speak past the grit of his teeth, and rests his cheek on her soft hair that smelt of windswept air and citrus, exhaling a trembling breath.

* * *

 

Steve doesn’t mean to be walking with a limp the next time he visits Inglewood. He hadn't planned for every dirty secret of SHIELD’s to be crawling on the internet and the news either, spreading like a infectious virus until it was the only thing people were talking about, and yet, here he is.

And here he thought the news would finally shut up about him for a few days once the hype for the Smithsonian exhibit died down, boy was he wrong.

He feels somewhat foolish now, riding the elevator to the fourth floor, wearing an old Brooklyn Dodgers cap that doesn’t do much to conceal his bruised features, especially after having his face plastered on every news station and blog for the past week.

Captain America, the man who helped released SHIELD’s dirty secrets and fought the Winter Soldier on a Washington highway.

Steve grits his teeth and his hands forming into fists, blood rushing through his veins in heated fear and anger. He exhales as the elevator doors open with a ding, now wasn’t the time for that. When he steps out into the hall and makes his way down to room 411, he begins to feel more anxious than anything.

He hadn’t been able to message Angie since the day after rescuing the hostages on the Lemurian Star, the last day he visited Inglewood when Peggy’s memory had relapsed on him once again.

He knows what she and Peggy have probably already seen on the news. He’s seen both the professional and amateur footage of the battle on the bridge. The destruction of the Helicarriers and Triskelion. The blurry images of what reporters and the internet debated either as Captain America or a piece of shrapnel falling into the Potomac.

It all just...happened so fast. There wasn’t any time for anything except to disregard the idea of putting Angie, and by proxy Peggy, in danger by asking for her help.

_“Everyone we know is trying to kills us.”_

He knew the moment Natasha said it that it wasn’t true. That the instant he met Sam, he had accidentally found another one of those Dependables just by reaching out with good-naturedly jesting and banter. That if he asked, Angie would hide him in the darkest corners of her home to protect him from the wrath of the world.

And then there were Angie’s texts. They had started off as they usually did, an update about Peggy and anecdotes of their day. Until the more time passed, and the more coverage that appeared on the news, the more they increased in length and panic; questions of his whereabouts and safety with vague threats of her own thrown at him scattered throughout. They continued up to the point where they just stopped all together two days ago, the day he had fallen into the Potomac.

Steve steps up to the room and he exhales, if the world couldn’t kill him, then Angie would. Slowly, he opens the door and peers around to find the den and kitchenette empty. He walks fully into the room, closing the door behind him and hears soft voices coming from the bedroom. With another exhale, he braces himself, slips off his ridiculous hat, and crosses the den to the bedroom door that was halfway open.

His throat bobbing, he knocks on the door and slowly pushes it open. Two pairs of eyes turn to look at his sudden appearance, with another figure sitting crossed legged at the bottom of Peggy’s bed, her tense back facing him. The breath he doesn’t realize he’s holding in his chest escapes him with a low exhale when Peggy looks at him with lucid sympathetic eyes.

He flashes Peggy a smile and turns to the other woman in the room he doesn’t recognize. She was old, looking about eighty; lean and tall, and of East Asian descent with olive skin and a warm smile. He nods politely at her, “Ma’am.”

She nods back at him. “Captain,” she replies, her eyes kind, and releases her folded arms to place a hand on who he recognized as Angie’s shoulder. “If you need me, I’ll be downstairs with Michael, alright?” She says in a soft motherly tone.

Angie nods imperceptibly, having not moved another inch since he entered. He grits his teeth, staring at Angie’s back as the woman releases her shoulder and moves to leave the room.

“Say hello to Mr. Bishop for me will you, Ms. Mears,” Peggy says and the woman turns back to smile and nod at Peggy.

“Sure thing, Carter,” Ms. Mears says and turns to walk past him, leaving with another small nod and smile at him that he returns.

When he hears the doors shut, Peggy looks up at him with a fond shake of her head. “I’ll have you know, you’re making a habit out of falling from ridiculous heights.”

At that, Angie suddenly bursts to her feet, her spine steel and fists clenched at her side. “I’m gonna do it,” she croaks out.

Steve frowns at her, a pit of worry making itself comfortable in the center of his chest.

Peggy looks at Angie, her mouth thinning into a line, “I really wish you wouldn’t.”

“You gonna get up and stop me, English?” Angie snaps back and suddenly whirls on him with her chest heaving. She glares at him with such unexpected fury that when he see’s her fist flying towards him, he doesn’t listen to his instincts to raise his hand to stop her.

Her fist connects hard with his cheekbone, snapping his head to the side. He sways on his feet, blinking away stars and dropping his hat with a soft plop. He raises a hand to his cheek and looks back at Angie, a deep frown creasing his forehead, his bafflement overpowering his hurt anger.

He meets her heated eyes that slowly glisten with unshed tears, her dark scowl fading to pained regret and her heaving chest unsteady with sharp exhales. When he drops his hand from his cheek, her eyes flicker to the red swelling skin, and looks away to a corner of the room, her shoulders dropping.

He tilts his head at her, that pit of worry tugging at him. “Ang?” He tries carefully.

Without a word, Angie ducks her head and pushes past him, leaving the room and the suit altogether with a sharp bang of the door. Steve blinks back into the empty den, feeling a slight daze that wasn’t due to the punch.

He turns back to Peggy, and she sighs at him with a concerned frown. “I’ve been told she has quite a right hook,” she says as he slowly bends down to pick up his hat and moves to sit on the vacant chair next to her. “I can’t say that I’ve been on the receiving end of one, but it’s been said to be a knockout.”

Steve softly rubs at his tender cheek, too perplexed to even ask why Peggy would imagine being on the receiving end of Angie’s fist. “Nothing I haven’t handled before,” he mutters, scowling.

“You could have stopped her, you know.”

“I know, it’s just,” he sighs and takes another glance back out the door. “I think she needed it.”

Peggy grasps his hand rubbing his cheek to hold in her lap, “She’ll be alright. She’s just...the past few days has taken its toll out of her, out of the both of us,” Peggy says as he looks down at the hat in his lap, she squeezes his hand. “She’s rather fond of you, you know. We were both worried.”

“I know,” he says, his voice hoarse and he suddenly let’s out a chuckle with no mirth in it. “You just...you mind explaining _why_ she punched the shit out of me?”

He looks up just in time to see Peggy’s eyes turn downcast, regret clouding them. “That’s up to her to tell you,” she admits to him and smiles sadly at his confused frown. “When you released all of Hydra’s secrets, all its dark and violent history, you released SHIELD’s as well. There were certain things that were meant to be hidden, to be locked away and forgotten.”

Her voice catches, a frown creasing her brow in a sudden occurrence. “I should have destroyed it...” She trails off and looks away, her eyes distant and pained, if almost horrified by her error of judgement.

He stares at her, feeling helpless and confused. Wanting to ask if she knew about Bucky. If she knew of Hydra spending years spreading its virus throughout SHIELD, and death and destruction throughout the world. That everything she worked hard and fought for to create SHIELD and keep it standing on it’s own two feet, if she knew that it was all worthless in the end. That she had been surrounded by the Red Skull’s venom and drowned in it, as Steve helped by flying that stupid plane into the ice.

The questions are nearly bursting from him when Peggy finally asks, “Do you know who it was? Who corrupted it?”

“Arnim Zola,” he answers, his voice low.

Her eyes darken. “I never did trust him, Phillips insisted he join,” she whispers, anguish shadowing her face. “I should have looked harder.”

“You can’t blame yourself.”

Peggy turns to him, her eyes flaming, “Why not? It was my job was it not? I spent so much time looking outward that I had forgotten to look in my own backyard. Even after...”

Peggy trails off again, getting lost in old memories, her gaze drifting away. _‘Even after what?’_ He wants to ask her, his heart sinking to his stomach. What burdens did she carry over the past seventy years? How many secrets?

He follows her gaze to the TV in the corner, silently playing the news about the shocking and history making government secrets released on the internet. Abruptly, an old photo of Peggy appears on the screen with the caption scrolling beneath it, _‘Former Director and founding member of SHIELD, Margaret Carter. Hydra conspirator?’_

He looks away, feeling sick to his stomach. “I didn’t mean,” he starts, clenching his teeth. “I only did what I thought you would do. The right thing.”

“You did,” she whispers, gripping his hand tight. “But it’s not me that you should be worried about. I couldn’t give a damn about my reputation, only that I did my job with the integrity it deserved. It’s the backlash you have to worry about now. The innocents caught in the crossfire. Angie.”

His eyes flicker to hers with a spark of comprehension, “She told me she wasn’t an agent.”

“She isn’t.”

Steve’s eyes searches Peggy for a moment, before he leans forward, his eyes hard, “Who is she, Peggy?”

She blinks slowly at him, giving him her full attention. “She’s been out in the cold for a long time, Steve. The secrets you released are going to drag her back in kicking and screaming. She’s going to need you now more than ever.”

He feels more confused than abated, exhaling heavily. “Who is she?” He repeats in a whisper.

Peggy only smiles sadly at him, “I’m afraid that’s not up for me to tell you.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> brb i need a drink


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we go folks, the final installment of part one. grab a drink and settle in, this one's a doozy. thank you so much for all your reviews :)

The sun is already setting when Steve leaves Inglewood, taking the long route home, slowly riding his motorcycle through the streets of Washington.

He had spent the better part of the day with Peggy, taking as much possible time with her and her lucid smile. After the few agonizing minutes they had spent discussing SHIELD and not really discussing Angie, he had divulged his side of the story of the past week. He had spent a great deal of time avoiding the tender subject of Bucky, and more time about Sam, Natasha, and Maria; how they stood by him no questions asked.

“I wish I could have been there with you,” she had whispered with a desolate smile.

“You would have given ‘em hell,” he had replied, his heart clenching in a vice grip.

He had left her on the brink of sleep in her bed with a kiss on her forehead and a promise to visit her again soon for her birthday.

Now, with the wind whipping his hair and his tender swollen cheek, worry eats at him. He had attempted to call and text Angie a number of times since she had socked in the face and disappeared a few hours ago, and all of them went unanswered. He knows she can take care of herself, he has faith that she can, but it’s impossible to ignore the worry gnawing at him when Angie had the usual habit of immediately responding to his messages.

Peggy’s words about Angie echo in his head when he finally rides his bike into his parking space next to his building. _The secrets you released are going to drag her back in kicking and screaming_. He grits his teeth and shuts off the bike, Bucky’s haunted and horrified recognition before Steve’s fall in the Potomac flashing before his eyes.

A storm develops in his stomach and his spine crumples, not for the first time in the past week.

With a trembling exhale, he gets off the bike and makes his way inside and through the building, taking careful steps down the halls.

He hadn’t planned on returning here, not with Fury getting shot in the middle of his living room by…

Steve’s breath hitches when he nears his door. He’s only here for clothes and amenities. Sam had generously extended Steve’s stay in his guestroom indefinitely. While Steve still doesn’t want to impose his hazardous life on Sam any further, he was too exhausted to argue Sam’s insistence on retrieving as many things as he can to bring back to his home.

He steps up to his door, barely sparing a glance to the neighbouring door, and stares darkly at the wood, feeling entirely unwilling to enter.

He shuts his eyes, inhaling deeply, and opens the door with more force than necessary.

The first two things that hits him is the smell of cleaning products and soft music that he recognizes as _Chet Baker_ coming from his record player. His heart beats erratically against his ribcage, feeling an overwhelming sense of deja vu.

Steve slowly closes the door behind him with a quiet click, and moves quietly through the apartment with deft feet, carefully peering around the corners of the kitchen and living room. He’s already mentally scolding himself for leaving his shield at Sam’s house when he see’s the lack of blood pooled where Fury had fallen after getting shot.

He slowly moves towards the spot, the floor and carpet spotless and smelling of cleaning product, and looks up at the wall to see where the bullet holes had been previously were now filled and covered with a fresh layer of paint. He glowers, his hands clenching into fists and looks down to find a pile of wires, miniscule microphones, and torn apart appliances sitting in the middle of his living room.

He pauses and stares at them, relief passing through him that the ears of SHIELD and whatever Hydra operatives that could have been listening to him have been deafened. He looks away from the pile, peeking down the corridor leading to his bedroom to see a streak of light seeping through a crack in the bathroom door.

His body tense and teeth clenched, Steve creeps towards the light. He braces his feet in front of the door and raises his hands into loose fists, set for a fight. He freezes when he hears running water and soft cursing coming from within, and nearly collapses against the door in relief at the familiar sound.

He sighs deeply, his fists and shoulders dropping. Steve slowly pushes open the door and leans heavily against the frame when Angie looks up at him through her eyelashes, unsurprised at his appearance and calmly sitting on his countertop.

That makes one of them. He freezes when he takes in her appearance, looking worse for wear with her hair tousled, and her clothes covered in dirt and splatters of blood. One leg dangles over the edge of the counter and the other rests in his sink, the same cutoff shorts she had been wearing earlier exposing fresh blue and purple bruises painted along her legs.

A rivulet of blood and water slowly run down from a gash on her leg just above her knee and into the drain, her bruised hands carefully cleaning the cut with a wet bloodstained cloth.

He feels ill, like the air in the room is pushing on his head and popping his ears.

When he looks up from her laceration to meet her eyes, she grins at him with no humour, a small cut on her lip splitting apart with glistening redness. “You should see the other guy,” she deadpans.

He folds his arms across his chest. “You gonna tell me what the hell happened?” He asks gruffly.

She raises an eyebrow, “You gonna tell me why everyone suddenly thinks Peg is a Hydra conspirator?”

It hits him square in the chest. He opens his mouth to refute and nothing comes out, too unnerved to do anything but stare.

Angie’s mouth thins. “Then no,” she simply says and turns back her work, carefully dragging the cloth around the open gash.

He doesn’t know how to respond, doesn’t know what to say, exhaustion falling heavily on him and worry sending shivers down his spine. That old uneasiness between them that had passed weeks ago is making its unwelcome reappearance. He didn’t know what to expect when had pushed open the door, but it wasn’t Angie looking like she got into a bar fight and looking at him as if he had kicked a dog.

Steve looks away, his eyes falling to what used to be his light switch cover lying on the counter. The piece unscrewed and pulled from the wall revealing the electrical box for the light switch and extra unnecessary wires peaking out next to it, cut open to reveal twisted copper inside the plastic.

He swallows down bile. “Did you do that?” He asks, his voice rough.

Steve see’s Angie follow his eyeline in his periphery, staring briefly at the open electrical box and turning back to her leg, “Yes.”

“You knew about them, about SHIELD listening.”

“Yes,” she repeats in a small voice.

He clenches his jaw and look up at her with a hard stare, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I couldn’t just let you know how much I knew about SHIELD, could I?” She says as if it were most obvious thing in the world. “Not when they were already listenin’.”

“What about the living room? Did you clean that up too?”

Angie pauses and spares a glance at him, frowning with no comprehension, “What happened in the livin’ room?”

She doesn’t know, just SHIELD cleaning up its mess. He’s oddly relieved. “Fury, he was shot. Killed him.”

Her posture droops, her eyes searching him with stricken eyes, “Who shot him?”

_A man with a metal arm. The Winter Soldier. Bucky._

Steve clenches his jaw, the words choked up in the back of his throat. When he doesn’t answer, her eyes flicker away, staring at a wall with blank scrutiny. Her throat bobs and she unfreezes from her shock with a quick inhale, picking up a half empty bottle of vodka that had been sitting behind her.

He stares hard at her, watches as she spins open the bottle with a determined frown. “I thought you didn’t drink,” he murmurs.

“I don’t,” she says, and with a grit of her teeth, she pours the clear liquid on the cut, squeezing her eyes shut with a sharp hiss.

He watches slightly horrified as a small stream of blood leaks from her wound before Angie quickly holds a new clean cloth to it, pressing down and breathing heavily. “Make a note to buy hydrogen peroxide would ya, Soldier? You ran out,” she gasps.

It’s so much unlike the Angie he came to know and adore, the way she handles herself. Moving with deft hands and a sure frown, as if she’s done this a hundred times before.

“Who the hell are you?” He rasps out before he can stop himself.

Angie looks up at him, blinking at him in surprise. She stares blankly at him for a moment, as if it’s the first time someone has asked her that question. Maybe even for the first time in years.

A smile creeps up the corners of her mouth, misery radiating from it. “I’m Angie, Steve,” she whispers, her voice cracking and her eyes filling with unshed tears. “Just Angie.”

Pulling her lips between her teeth, she tears her eyes away back to her leg, pulling away the cloth from the cut to see it finally cease bleeding. She huffs a humourless laugh, “You know me. Woulda been awkward if you didn’t, considerin’ y’know, we stayed up ‘til 4am watchin’ that documentary about aliens making the pyramids that one time.”

He watches a tear drip down her cheeks as she washes the rest of the blood from her leg, his heart aching at the sight of it, the damn thing. “I still don’t think they did it,” he murmurs.

She snorts and turns the water off, tossing the ruined cloth in the sink. The urge to wrap her in his arms brims to an overwhelming need as she sniffs and turns to his emergency kit, pulling out a needle and thread with trembling hands.

Swallowing past the lump in his throat, Steve drops his arms and steps towards her, gritting his teeth when she tenses as he nears. He spreads his arms slightly in a placating manner, lifting his palms up to her.

“Hey,” he says softly, ducking his head to catch her red rimmed eyes, giving her a small smile.

“Hey,” she whispers back, her lips flickering with a tremulous smile.

Slowly, he reaches out to take the thread and needle from her, giving her a reassuring smile. Angie relinquishes them without a fuss, and with no prompting she spins on the counter to face the toilet, pressing a hand against her ribs with a scowl. Frowning at that, he quickly pulls the lid down and sits in front of her.

As he pulls the thread through the needle, she exhales deeply and rests her leg carefully on the counter so that Steve’s eye level with the cut. He glowers witheringly at it, the pink flesh tender and vulnerable, the skin around it red and angry. It was a clean cut, looking as if a knife-wielder had a good swipe at her in an attempt to drop her. Steve pictures tossing the assailant off a bridge. Or maybe out of a plane.

Steve blinks the images away and looks up at her through his eyelashes with a quirked eyebrow, and with a quick nod from her, he sets to work.

She barely lets out a wince as he pierces the needle through her skin and pulls on the thread. He can’t help but feel somewhat impressed at her stoicism, and more than a little dismal she’s hiding her pain from him anyways. It isn’t the first time he’s had to stitch someone up, but he can now tick down a mark on his civvie tally, and Angie was the last person he had ever wanted on that list.

“I hope you gave as good as you got,” he murmurs, gently grasping the back of her bruised calf to help brace her leg steady.

“Gave ‘em even better,” she replies, a smug grin pulling at her lips, her eyes still tinted red. "They had no idea what was comin', shoulda seen the look on their faces."

His smile falters, questions begging to slip from his lips and yet he can’t find it in himself to ask. How she learned to fight to hit someone back even harder they did. How many had attacked her. If she had killed someone tonight.

The more time passes and the more he thinks about it, the more horrified he feels at the thought of Angie hitting anyone hard enough to permanently damage them. Sweet, innocent Angie who had dreamt of dancing and singing on stage, and cries while watching Disney movies..

They were bartering for scraps of honesty, with Steve unwilling to divulge the horrors of Bucky and Hydra, and Angie holding her secrets and pain close to her chest.

“I was looking for something,” Angie says finally, her voice faint, pulling him from his thoughts while simultaneously answering his question, as if she had read his conflicted expression.

He pauses his ministrations and looks up at her to see her leaning her shoulder and forehead against the mirror, looking exhausted. “What were you looking for?” He asks softly.

Her face crumples briefly in anguish before blinking it away, looking down at her lap. “If I could be her again,” she says, her voice thick with emotion.

Steve’s left feeling more confused than ever, watching as she fiddles with her hands in her lap. It doesn’t make sense, none of it does, and yet he feels as if he understands what she means. He used to be terrified of waking up one day and find the bright colours of world suddenly dull again, the sound in his ears off and his lungs burning for air.

He startles slightly when she abruptly looks up to meet his gaze, her eyes searching his face and landing on his swollen cheek.

She leans forward slowly, her hand reaching out to graze his cheek with light fingers. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

He reaches up to grasp her hand, rubbing the pad of his thumb over her bruised knuckles, smiling in forgiveness. She pulls their hands away to rest them on her lap. “Why’d you do it?” He asks.

Angie looks down at their hands, her fingers brushing lightly over his own. “You and your friends pretty much turned mine and Peggy’s life upside down in a single day, that’s...a lot,” she finally replies and breathes out a grim chuckle. “Funny story, once knew a gal who had some...proclivities for other women. Drank a lot, was engaged to marry a cruel man, and wasn’t very careful about her side hobbies. She used to tell me she dreamt of going up to the roof and flying away on butterfly wings, just so she could be free to love whoever she wanted. Then one day, her fiance figured out what she was doing and told her parents. They were nice folks, but they didn’t take too kindly to that...”

She trails off, her eyes lost in the memory. “What happened to her?” Steve asks, his body tense.

Angie smiles sadly, “She got drunk, went up to the roof, and tried to fly.”

Steve can taste the bile in his mouth. He looks away, his blood boiling under his skin.

“She told me butterflies were proof you could have a second chance for a new life,” Angie continues, her voice cracking.

He briefly shuts his eyes and shakes his head, “I had to do it. You know I had to do it, it had to be brought down.”

She sighs and presses her lips together, “You could have saved it. You could have found another way - ”

“Angie,” he breathes with desperate eyes, gripping her hand, forcing her to look at him. “We couldn’t. Everything...Hydra...they corrupted it all. From the very beginning.”

She freezes and blinks at him, incredulous, “From the beginning?”

“It was Paperclip, the people they brought in. Zola…”

She grits her teeth and a fresh wave of tears fills her eyes, “Everythin’ Peggy worked for…”

He looks away, guilt crashing over him. “Her name, her reputation; they’re going to tear her apart,” Angie continues, her voice choked with anger, and she releases his hand to bury her face in palms, rubbing viciously at her face. _“Fuck.”_

Steve looks down, a heaviness weighing on his shoulders. When she remains unmoving, he lets out a shuddering sigh and turns back to her leg to continue to stitch it up, Angie not reacting to his aid. “She told me not to worry about her.”

Angie exhales deeply into her hands and drops them to grip the edge of the counter with a white knuckled grip. “Of course she did,” she deadpans with a rasp, curling her lips. _“Cazzo! Madre di Dio, ma quanto piensa che siamo stupidi...”_ She trails off, muttering more curses in Italian under her breath.

The cursing flying over his head, Steve thinks back to what Angie had said moments before, her words eating at him. “She said something else,” he starts slowly, taking a quick anxious glance up at Angie before frowning deeply at his work. “Something about...SHIELD’s secrets.”

He peers carefully up again to see Angie staring down at him, her eyebrows turned down. “What about it?” She mutters.

His throat bobs, “Something about you coming in from the cold.”

Slowly, Angie’s spine turns to steel and she looks away to stare at the wall. “Well, I wouldn’t be hidin’ out in your bathroom if it weren’t cold out,” she says, her voice cracking. He sighs in frustration, knowing it was very well warm outside.

“You’re not making this easy for me,” Steve says, carefully finishing the stitches with a quick snip of his emergency kit scissors, leaning back to survey his work but finds himself too distracted to pass any proper judgement on it. “You don’t have to tell me everything, Ang,” he looks up at her, placing a hand on her uninjured knee, “I just want to know if I can trust you.”

She let’s out a chuckle that held no humour or warmth in it, and bites her lip, wincing as teeth presses on the small cut on her lip. Her eyes dart rapidly around the room, as if she could find some excuse to give him within the white walls. Steve places a hand on one of hers gripping the counter and air expels from her lungs in a sharp exhale.

“I didn’t lie to you,” she admits to him. “I just...twisted the truth.”

“A lie’s a lie,” he responds, his voice coming out harder than he meant it to be. He sighs and leans forward looking kindly up at her, “but I’m willing to hear you out. I want to.”

She tilts her head. “Y’know...you can be real stupidly earnest sometimes,” she says, a corner of her mouth curling into an diminutive grin.

“I like to think it’s one of my better qualities,” he replies, nodding his head to the side with a grin that quickly turns serious. “C’mon, you scratch my back, I scratch yours. You tell me what it is, and I’ll tell you what happened in the past few days, ‘cause if I’m going to be here for you when shit hits the fan and someone digs up whatever SHIELD has on you, then I need to know the truth.”

A shadow of despair falls on her face, her hand moves under his to grasp it properly. “What SHIELD has on me,” she repeats in a whisper, bitterness coating her words. “They have all my files. Everything. I gave it to them. They have hours of me admitting the truth. Until every piece of information I had in me was drawn up until I ran dry. Only just so they...so Peggy could let me come back home. That was all I wanted.”

He swallows down the lump in his throat, “What information did they want from you?”

Angie slowly licks her lips, her eyes distant and grim as she whispers, _“Krasnaya Komnata.”_

His blood runs cold. He wasn’t fluent in Russian, not yet at least, but he knew enough to put the words together.

He looks away and down at their hands with his heart pounding in his ears, suddenly feeling the roughness of her palms, his thumb grazing over hardened skin. A shiver runs down his spine, disquieted at how he had never realized. Images of just what her hands were capable of run through his mind.

He only had a vague understanding of the Red Room, but he knows enough to be disturbed at the easy way the foreign words had passed through Angie’s lips and her smug satisfaction of beating her attackers.

The storm in his stomach returns. He looks back up at Angie, and suddenly her haunted eyes were a mirror reflection of Natasha’s. Of Bucky’s. His eyes begin to burn.

“Okay,” he simply says, his voice tight.

Angie’s eyes flicker down at his, puzzled and shining with tears, “Okay?”

He nods and moves to stand in front of her, taking both of her hands in his, “Yeah.”

She blinks, tears spilling on her cheeks, and flashes him a brief smile that quickly crumples. He smiles back reassuringly, reaching up to brush her tears away with his thumbs. “What ever you need, I’m here. Alright?”

“Even hot chocolate?”

He breathes out a laugh, “Even hot chocolate.”

She nods, biting her lip and leaning forward to tuck her head underneath his chin as he wraps his arms around her shoulders. It doesn’t feel like enough, like his arms can’t wrap around whatever horrors she's seen or done to exorcise it out of her.

He holds her closer, aware of of his strength, and presses a soft kiss to the crown of her head when she buries deeper against his chest.

If Bucky was lost and wandering, unreachable and out of sight, then Angie was a great stone wall. It would take time to find Bucky, and even if Steve did manage to find him, spying the recognition in Bucky’s eyes only for the Winter Soldier to bare his teeth and snarl, at least he would have Angie. He’d wait for both of them. Waiting day by day as Angie slowly pulls her stones down, the edge drifting closer and closer to his fingertips. Waiting for Bucky to drift back to him, a ghost materializing in the corners of his eyes.

If bringing down SHIELD and Hydra meant that he’d be dragging not only Angie and Bucky, but also Natasha in from the cold then he’d be with them every step of the way.

“My best friend is alive,” he confesses softly, wisps of Angie’s hair floating with the air of his breath. “Hydra found him. Brainwashed him. He tried to kill me...he saved me instead.”

Angie remains silent, taking in his confession before finally asking, “The man with the metal arm?”

He nods against her head and her wraps tighter around him. “What do you think is going to happen? When people start digging?” He asks as his hand slowly rubs her back.

“I don’t know,” she whispers, her hands gripping his shirt tight. “They’ll take away everything I worked hard for, everything that’s important to me.”

He thinks of Natasha defending herself on Capitol Hill, “It doesn’t have to be like that. Natasha-”

She snorts with derision, interrupting him, “The Black Widow?” She pulls away to look at him incredulously. “She’s an Avenger, Steve. She’s saved the world with you. You know what I’ve been doing? I’ve been in hiding for longer than you can imagine, and currently I’m the caretaker of a woman who everyone now thinks was the previous leader of Hydra. Whaddya think they’re going to do to me when they figure that out?”

“Nothing,” he says with a determined glower. “Not while I’m by your side.”

Angie shakes her head, “I can’t let you do that. I won’t.”

“Since when do I ever follow your orders,” he says, giving her a wry grin that she frowns at. “You won’t be the only one I’ll be protecting anyways.”

Her eyes shine with tears and torment, she slowly shakes her head again and whispers, “You can’t save everyone, Steve.”

His grin slips away and his heart falls to his stomach. She says it in such a way as if it’s a lesson she had to learn before, and all it does is makes him want to shield her from the world.

“Maybe,” he says, his voice rough, reaching out to grasp her hand. “But I can try.”

She remains silent, staring up at him with wide eyes, searching his face with quiet affection. “You’re somethin’ else, you know that?”

A blush warms his cheeks and he ducks his head, a real grin pulling at his mouth. He hears Angie breathe out a chuckle as she squeezes his hand. “Are we gonna be okay?” She asks in a small voice.

He looks up at her to find her staring at their hands, a small crease between her eyebrows. “‘Course we’re gonna be be okay. You can’t get rid of me,” he says with a nudge to her knee, coaxing her eyes to meet his with a warm smile that she mirrors.

It doesn’t take long for him to finish taking care of her afterwards. He gently covers her stitches with ointment before wrapping it in gauze, and rolls his eyes when Angie refuses to allow him to carry her to the living room after she changes into comfortable clothes that she had in her bag. She walks with barely a limp to the couch and collapses on it with a sigh as he stares, both impressed and perturbed.

Once he texts Sam that he’ll be staying at the apartment for another night and changes into his own home clothes, Steve makes them grilled cheese sandwiches and hot chocolate, and they settle on his couch to watch a movie.

“I can’t believe we forgot to watch _The Lion King_ ,” Angie mutters around her mouthful of cheese and bread as the DVD starts up.

“Cute,” he says with a wry grin at her food filled cheeks. She responds by grinning at him, her cheeks bulging out even further and he chuckles, his shoulders feeling lighter than it did ten minutes ago.

Just as he’s about to press play he pauses and turns to her. Feeling his stare, she freezes her hand mid-air and looks at him with a worried frown. “Don’t you want to know?” He asks carefully, “About what happened with SHIELD and Hydra?”

She slowly drops her sandwich back on her small plate, turning to stare down at it with a heavy bob of her throat, “Not right now, I think.” She glances back up at him with a shy shrug, “I just wanna curl up and watch Disney movies with you.”

A warm glow fills his chest as he smiles back at her with sympathy. “Alright,” he says softly and presses play.

During a lull in the middle of the movie, he leans his head toward Angie without taking his eyes off the screen, “What did Peggy think of it? The movie?”

He see’s Angie grin out of the corner of his eyes and hears her snort, “She fell asleep watchin’ it. Conked out right in the middle of it.” Their shoulders shake in silent laughter. “I was so annoyed at her, I started it over again.”

Steve takes a peek at her, enjoying the way the screen lit up her eyes after such a heavy conversation in the bathroom. “I’m glad she has you,” he admits, turning fully to look at her when her eyes snap to him.

A smile slowly blooms on her face, “I’m glad she has you too.”

Without any warning, she pulls his arm up to wrap over her shoulders as she curls up against him. Steve grins, pulling her closer and propping his feet up on the coffee table next to hers, sinking further into the couch.

“You’re like a giant pillow, I swear to God,” he hears her mutter with a sigh and he chuckles. When she swats at his stomach, he chuckles harder. “Stop movin' you great lump, geez. I’ll get motion sickness.”

* * *

 

He doesn’t know what time it is when he slowly blinks his eyes open, sprawled out on the couch. The living room is still dark with the exception of the TV still playing late night infomercials. After a long discussion about The Lion King once it was over, Steve and Angie had decided to watch TV late into the night, not feeling up to moving from their comfortable spots on the couch to put in another one of Angie’s movies.

Steve blinks blearily at the digital clock below his TV while rubbing half of his face, seeing that it was nearly two o’clock in the morning.. They must have fallen asleep an hour or so ago.

He makes an attempt to sit up and roll out the kinks from his neck when he realizes he’s partially stuck under Angie. He turns to look at her; she’s half on top of him, curled up while facing the back of the couch and her head resting on his shoulder. One arm stretches above her head and the other holds his own arm, stuck underneath and between her body and the couch, against her chest.

He grins sleepily at her, her skin cold to the touch and her torso slowly rising and falling with the sound of deep breaths, completely passed out. Blindly, he reaches down to the blanket where they had draped over themselves earlier while watching TV, not wanting to wake her to move her to his bed, and pauses when something catches his eye.

She had changed into a tanktop earlier after their bathroom conversation, revealing a butterfly tattoo just below the base of her neck, lit by the glow of the TV. Steve slowly pulls the blanket higher over them and feels himself almost reaching out to touch it, watching the way her shivering raises goosebumps on the skin of her back and shoulders. Instead, he clenches his jaw and pulls the blanket the rest of the way over her shoulders, turns the TV off, and carefully moves to embrace her.

He wraps his free arm around her waist, and rests his forehead and nose against her hair, pulling her closer to his chest to keep her warm.

* * *

 

The day of Peggy’s birthday, he wakes up buzzing with nerves. By the time he’s outrun Sam by a few miles on the Mall, he still isn’t feeling any better, not even with Angie’s morning text updates awaiting him when they return home.

They’re lengthy as usual, with random commentary during her metro trip to Inglewood, as if to distract herself from her own nerves. It’s once he finally gets to the messages about Peggy’s lucidity and the flowers he had gotten delivered that he feels his anxiety cease.

He chuckles when he scrolls to a picture of Peggy in bed holding a multitude of flower bouquets and balloons with an unamused yet fond smile, no doubt surrounded with the combination of his and Angie’s gifts.

By the time it’s three, Steve’s already in his guestroom getting ready when Sam appears in the doorway.

“So, are you going on a date or,” Sam drawls, leaning against the doorframe with a smirk as Steve loops a tie around his neck.

“Nope,” Steve replies shaking his head with pursed lips, “And for the record it’s a birthday dinner.”

“I don’t know, man. I mean you’re all twitchy and dressed in your Sunday best, about to pick up a pretty girl for a dinner and a show - ”  
  
“That she herself has planned out and is singing for.”

“I’m just saying, it sounds like a date.”

Steve’s mouth thins, “Not with her at least.”

Sam pauses and snorts. “You mean to tell me another girl personally set up a dinner and show...so you can have a date with someone else?” He pulls his mouth down and raises his eyebrows with nod, “That’s impressive.”

Steve pauses. “Well, when you put it like that, it sounds - “

“Impressive,” Sam interrupts, chuckling when Steve turns to give him an unamused stare.

With a fond shake of his head, Steve turns back to his tie, “How do you even know what Angie looks like?”

“Dude, she’s called you enough times in the past two days that I’ve seen your contact photo of her. Real cute by the way.”

A blush heats up his neck, slightly embarrassed. Angie had stolen his phone and changed her contact photo to a picture she had taken of herself posing with his shield, and he had never bothered to change it.

“You’d like her,” he murmurs, pulling his collar over the tie and smoothing it down against his chest. “She’s the one who made me listen to Lauryn Hill.”

Sam breathes out another impressed chuckle, “She’s a keeper.”

Steve grins, pulling on his suit jacket. “It’s not her though,” he says, a small frown creasing his forehead as he fixes his sleeves. “It’s Peggy.”

He looks up at Sam, seeing his expression turn serious. He had told Sam about Peggy not long after bringing down SHIELD, after waking up on that hospital bed. His relief was palpable when he had set his eyes on Sam, still looking like the same young man he entrusted his life with.

His gratitude had poured over him and soon enough, he was admitting how odd it felt to be on the opposite side of the spectrum; to be lying on a bed, broken and put back together, while someone he cared about helplessly watched over him.

“How old is she turning?” Sam asks, having connected the dots.

“Ninety-three,” Steve answers softly.

Sam smiles sympathetically at him, “Think it could be good for you?”

Steve gives him a nonchalant shrug, feeling his stomach twisting and turning, “Could be closure,” he says and grits his teeth, “It’s just...the timing.”

“The calm before the storm?” Sam asks, and he nods, staring hard at the wall. “You know I can’t tell you to stop worrying, because you’re you, and I’ve never seen someone worry as much as you.”

That pulls a chuckle out of Steve, ducking his head. “Hell, even I worry sometimes,” Sam continues with a grin, “I’m gonna be running out of bacon soon with the way you eat. But until then, take your girl out, dance a little, enjoy the music. After all that mess with Hydra and SHIELD, I think you deserve a night out.”

He looks up, meeting Sam’s kind eyes and smiles warmly at him, “Thank you, Sam. For everything.”

Sam shrugs and gives him a mischievous grin, “Just get that friend of yours to fix my wings and we’ll call it even.”

Steve rolls his eyes and chuckles, “I’m not really sure I can call Tony a friend.”

“Just get it done,” he says with a playful smirk, “Or my mom won’t make you her famous cookies.”

“Alright, since you’re bringing the cookies into this, I’ll call in a favour,” Steve chuckles, raising his hands placatingly, “Just don’t be surprised when he tries to change the design once a week. Last I heard, he made a couple dozen suits before having them all destroyed. Think he needs a new hobby.”

“More fun for me,” Sam says, checking his watch and pulls off against the doorframe, “Damn, gotta get back to the VA.”

Steve nods, moving to his dresser as Sam backs away from the door, “Alright, I’ll see you later.”

“I’ll be there until eight if you need me,” Sam says and points a finger at him. “Remember, enjoy yourself.”

“I will,” Steve says as Sam disappears around the corner.

He laughs when Sam calls out to him, “And I want to meet Angie.”

Steve fondly rolls his eyes, “You got it.”

“And I expect you back home no later than twelve!”

“Yes, sir,” he calls back, grinning and putting on his watch, hearing Sam’s laugh being cut off by the front door closing shut.

It doesn’t take him much longer to finish. He quickly fixes his hair, and smooths a hand over his clothes for the millionth time before he’s stepping out the house.

Once he’s finally on the road, sitting behind the wheels of his car due to the behest of Angie’s texts, he’s a bundle of nerves again. On the way to pick up Angie, who had returned home to get ready and prepare for the evening, he spends five minutes of driving considering whether or not he should stop to pick up more flowers. After passing by the third florist shop, he curses under his breath and turns around to stop and pick up a small bouquet.

When he finally makes it to Angie’s house, he texts her mentioning he’s outside and has to grip the steering wheel to stop his hands from nervously tapping on it.

Seconds later, he hears her door open and slowly moves his head to look at the front of the house in a careful attempt to keep from snapping his neck towards it. He see’s Angie shutting and locking the door, dressed to the nines with a cream jacket over a light blue dress and matching cream coloured heels with a black garment bag draped over one arm. He exhales deep and slow. Steady now.

His eyes drift toward her legs; her dress was long enough to cover her stitches but not her bruises. He carefully spies for any dark discolorations only to find that they had already faded into barely visible splotches that were further covered up with her nylon stockings.

With a sigh, Steve watches as she bounds down the steps without a limp, as if he never had to give her eleven stitches on her leg in the first place. Angie beams at him through the car window, her wavy hair bouncing with every step, and her dress and coat dancing in the slight wind.

She opens the back door and peers in, her cheeks flushed pink. “Hi,” she says brightly.

“Hi,” he replies, smiling at her as she carefully hangs the bag on the hook above the door.

He swallows heavily as she shuts the back door and opens the front, hopping in and leaning forward to press a quick kiss on his cheek before shutting the door.

“You’re not gonna believe what I got in there,” she says, her eyes twinkling as she puts on her seatbelt while he sits there, frozen and blinking rapidly, his cheek where she had pressed her lips tingling. “Took me a age and a half to dig it outta one of Peg’s old suitcases. You wouldn’t believe the amount of clothes she has hoarded in those bags of hers. It took me another age to find a good tailor who wouldn’t muck up the seams for a good price. Y’know how much she shrunk in the last decade?”

He shakes his head, his eyes slightly wide, heat travelling up his neck. “Three and a half inches. She’s finally shorter than me,” Angie continues with a snicker. “That entire ordeal took a good coupla years off of my life, I’m never sorting through that amount of clothes again.”

Carefully adjusting his tie, he clears his throat, “You got your dresses tailored?”

Angie looks at him carefully with a grin, “Did you hit your head again in the past few days? Have you been hearin’ anything of what I’ve said in the past minute? Don’t tell me I got all this dressed up for nothin’ and we have to cancel ‘cause you got yourself a brain injury.”

He shakes his head again. “No, I mean,” he stutters and gives her another once-over, his mind blanking into a flustered mess. “You look...nice...by the way.”

“Really?” She smirks teasingly, quirking her eyebrow. “Of all the adjectives in the world, you go with nice?”

His mouth drops open, blinking rapidly and sputtering out things that weren’t actually words.

Angie laughs and rolls her eyes, “At ease, Soldier. Save your real compliments for Peg. You’re gonna fall over your feet when you see her, I promise -”

“Beautiful,” he blurts out. She pauses, blinking at him with wide eyes. “You look,” he continues, his voice choking. He clenches his teeth and his hands grasp the steering wheel in a determined grip, “Beautiful.”

He’s seconds away from melting into his car seat when Angie flickers her eyes down over him before meeting his gaze with a small pleased smile, “You’re not so bad yourself, Soldier.”

Steve smiles and Angie’s eyes flicker back down to the flowers in his lap. “Oh, um,” he grabs them and holds the bouquet of gardenias out to her, suddenly feeling like he’s finally going to the prom that he spent in the hospital with pneumonia.

Amusement shining in her eyes, Angie takes them. “These are for me?” She asks disbelievingly.

He nods, swallowing hard. “Yeah, I uh, I was gonna give it to you after your show, but I...didn’t know where to put it until then.”

Angie smiles and ducks her head to breathe in the smell of the flowers, “They’re gorgeous. Thanks, Soldier,” she says, looking up at him through her eyelashes.

With a pleased grin and a blush, Steve starts the car and pulls out onto the street. The drive is silent except for the music of his iPod playing low and the wind sweeping in from the cracks in the windows. At some point on the drive, Angie grabs his hand resting in the middle of the console to hold in her lap as she looks out the window with a diminutive smile.

* * *

 

When they’re finally stepping into Peggy’s suit, Angie’s bubbling in eager enthusiasm with Steve following behind as per usual with an amused grin, holding the garment bag for Angie.

Olivia pops out of Peggy’s room with a smile, “Welcome back. The birthday girl is all showered and ready for you, Angie.”

“Perfect, thank you Olivia,” Angie quickly embraces her in a tight hug before zooming past her into Peggy’s room, loudly exclaiming, “Happy birthday, English!”

“Oh, bloody hell,” he hears Peggy say, her voice muffled as if she’s been attacked with a hug. “You said that already today.”

Steve laughs and turns to Olivia, holding out his hand for her to shake, “Nice to see you again, ma’am.”

Olivia smiles warmly at him, shaking his hand. “Those girls were right about you, you really are a charmer,” she ribs, and for the millionth time that day he blushes. Olivia laughs, “I’ll leave you three to it. You’re gonna love what what they’ve done with the dining room, your girl really went all out.”

Steve’s mouth parts in an attempt to correct her, but Olivia only laughs kindly again when nothing comes out and his blush deepens. She steps up to him to pat him on the arm, “Enjoy your night, Steve.”

He nods politely at her as she passes by him and out the room. He sighs heavily into the empty den when the door closes and he’s left alone, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

After a moment of internal cursing, he pads over into Peggy’s room and leans on the doorway with an affectionate smile at the sight that greets him. Peggy lies uncovered in the middle of her bed with a book and reading glasses lying beside her as Angie lays curled up next to her, resting her head against Peggy’s, the pair of them smiling down at the gardenia bouquet on their laps.

“Hope I’m not interrupting,” he says softly and the both of them look up at him with matching smiles.

“Hello, darling,” Peggy says adoringly, warming his heart.

When Peggy reaches out a hand for him, he quickly places the garment bag on one of the chairs to grasp it and place a kiss on her head. “Happy birthday,” he murmurs, sitting down next to her.

“I’m just gonna go put these in water,” Angie says softly, giving him a wink and moving from the bed and out of the room while both Steve and Peggy stare after her.

“She’s something else isn’t she?” Peggy says and they turn back to each other, sharing knowing grins.

“You wouldn’t have happened to have anything to do with this, would you?” Peggy asks, gesturing around to the dozens of flowers and a handful of balloons around the room and den.

He barely moves his eyes off of her, “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She hums with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes that settles his nerves, “No idea you had turned blind, what a shame.”

He chuckles and wraps both his hands around Peggy’s. “So how does it feel to be ninety-three?” He smirks at her.

Peggy rolls her eyes, making him chuckle. “Bloody awful is what it is,” she mutters with a shake of her head, “I swear just yesterday I was knocking Howard Stark into the Thames.”

He chuckles at the picture, “At least you aren’t actually turning ninety-five.”

She gives him an unamused stare that he shrugs innocently at, “Are you going to bring that up every time my age is mentioned?”

“Maybe.”

“That’s just absolutely foul, keep it up and I’ll dance with Angie instead.”

He laughs, a sudden desire to actually witness that rising within him. What he wouldn’t give for time to reverse, for Peggy to be twenty-four again and for all three of them to go dancing together.

Just then, Angie bounds back into the room, having taken off her shoes and jacket. “You know I’m always up for a dance, Peg,” she quips with another wink. “C’mon hon, time to get ready. The rest of the band are on their way to set up.”

Together, both he and Angie slowly help Peggy move to edge of the bed so Angie could easily reach her to fix up her hair, with Peggy muttering the entire time about not knowing what band they were talking about and why there was a band in the first place.

For a brief moment, Steve and Angie share a worried glance until Peggy sighs, “Well get on with it darling, we don’t have all day.”

He turns to lean back on the pillows, making himself comfortable as he watches Angie get to work on Peggy’s hair, a crease forming between Angie’s brows with focused determination. He smiles at the way Peggy leans her head and closes her eyes when Angie runs her hands through her silver and grey hair, her shoulders dropping in relaxation as if this is a thing they do on a daily bases. He sighs, feeling content to watch the pair of them in silence.

It’s only when Angie turns around to set up the curling iron and hair products, pulling her own hair over one shoulder, does he spy the butterfly. He inhales slowly and looks away, reaching out to grab the remote from the nightstand and turn on the TV.

He feels Peggy grab his hand, and he turns to look at her, her eyebrows creased with worry. He gives her a reassuring smile that she warmly returns.

It doesn’t take as long as he had expected for Angie to finish Peggy’s hair, humming and running through vocal exercises the entire time. At one point, she requests that he go make her a hot mug of water and honey for her throat. He returns with the mug and freezes at the sight of Peggy’s hair pinned up in victory rolls and waves. He blinks at the odd sensation of familiarity and nostalgia.

Angie gives him a smug smirk as she takes the mug from him, “Amazin’, huh? Worked my ass off practicin’ to get it right.”

Angie takes a sip from her mug, patting his arm when he nods with an impressed smile. Peggy just shakes her head exasperatedly that makes Angie grin. “Now, English, you’re not gonna believe this lipstick colour I found for you at the store, it’s just your kinda red,” Angie continues, placing the mug on the nightstand and pulling out a small makeup bag from her backpack next to Peggy’s bed.

A couple minutes later, Angie’s leaning back from Peggy’s face after slowly and painstakingly applying a thin layer of makeup on her face with her tongue poking out between her lips in concentration that Steve smiles at adoringly. “Voila!” She exclaims with a flourish of her arms.

She kicks him out of the room after, shoving him out the bedroom door as he laughs, “Alright, out you go, Soldier. Ladies only. Orders are orders. Out!”

He sits on the couch on the den, his elbows resting against his knees, waiting and carefully listening in case Angie needed his help, only to hear Angie’s giggling and Peggy’s low mutterings.

Minutes later, the door opens unexpectedly and Angie peeks her head out to grin at him, “You ready?”

He nods, biting his lip and standing up fast, nearly giving himself vertigo as Angie disappears back in the room, murmuring low at Peggy. His heart beats erratically against his ribs and his palm sweats, and he once again smooths down his suit.

Slowly, a red figure appears in the threshold and his heart jumps into his throat. Peggy smiles shyly up at him, a pearl necklace around her neck and her lips encased in a vibrant red lipstick that matches her dress. _The dress._ The one she wore once upon a time ago in a pub in London. He looks up, meeting her eyes that shine with that familiar vigor he so desperately misses.

“Hi,” he breathes.

“Hello,” she whispers back.

Angie slowly appears around Peggy, an arm coming to wrap around Peggy’s waist. “Stunning, ain’t she, huh?” Angie gives Peggy a blatant once-over, wiggling her eyebrows at her when their eyes meet.

Peggy exhales with fond frustration, a blush colouring her cheeks. “You’re incorrigible.”

“No idea what you’re talkin’ about, English.”

Peggy purses her mouth, glaring affectionately at Angie, “I’ll have you know, if you sing any of your ridiculous cheesy musical numbers this evening, I’ll get you thrown out.”

Angie laughs, “Whaddya think I’m gonna do? Dress up in drag and do the hoola?”

When Steve snickers, Peggy’s snap her eyes to him and they narrow when Angie shares a mischievous grin with him. “No. Absolutely not,” Peggy’s says, her eyes darting between them, shaking her head.

Angie huffs laugh, “No, what?”

“I did not introduce the both of you to gang up on me with your absurd inside jokes.”

Steve and Angie laugh, and Peggy glares at them until she’s unable to stop the fond smile creeping up her mouth. “Oh, c’mon, it’s been ages since I got to gang up on you with someone,” Angie chuckles.

Peggy curls up lip in a sneer, and once again they fall into a heated discussion, animatedly discussing someone by the name of Seymour. Steve smiles at them, feeling everything far too much and far too fast. He’s saved from possibly hyperventilating when Angie’s phone on the coffee table chirps. She wiggles her eyebrows again at Peggy who scowls at her, and carefully leaves her side to pick up her phone.

Steve immediately moves to take up Angie’s vacant spot, bracing his hand on the small of Peggy’s back. “Excited?” He whispers, marvelling at just how short she really has gotten.

She looks up at him, her eyes blinking up at him with a baffled smile, “Excited for what?”

He frowns, “Our dance.”

Peggy’s mouth falls, her eyes clouding, “We’re going dancing?”

He stops breathing for a moment, seeing Angie peering at them in his periphery, biting her lips with a deep frown and her phone in hand. “Yeah,” he answers, taking steadying breaths. “For your birthday, remember?”

She’s silent for a moment, staring with a small frown at the wall. “Oh, yes,” she gently replies, her voice distant.

“Well,” Angie says a little too loudly, making him look up at her with worry as she moves quickly past them, grabbing her shoes to put on. “I gotta head downstairs to help fix everythin’ up. The show and dinner starts in about fifteen minutes, so take your time to head down, no rush.”

With her shoes on, she steps towards him and doesn’t even have to reach on her toes to kiss his cheek. He’s ready for it this time. “I’ll see you both downstairs,” she says when she pulls away and moves to stand in front of Peggy, slowly cupping her cheek, tilting her head with concern, “You gonna be okay, Peg?”

Peggy smiles at her, “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Her chest slightly heaving, Angie leans forward to place a gentle kiss on her cheek and pulls back with a tremulous smile, “Enjoy the show.”

“Break a leg,” Steve murmurs, quickly grasping her hand.

She turns to him and her smile turns grateful. With a squeeze of his hand, she lets go and turns to leave the suit, shutting the door quickly behind her.

“You’re blushing,” Peggy says knowingly from beside him.

He turns to her to find her smiling deviously up at him, and he grins crookedly back at her, running a palm over his warm cheek. “So are you,” he mutters, eyeing the way her own cheeks had darkened.

They don’t lounge around for long, finding no necessary need to stay in Peggy’s suite for much longer. He helps her into her wheelchair and pushes her out the suite. They slowly make their way downstairs with Steve pushing leisurely. Other residents pass them by or join them in the elevator, they too making their way to the dinner and show, dressed up in their finest.

When they make it to the dinning room, they pause in the doorway, staring wide-eyed. It had been transformed from its dull and conventional setting into a cozy, classic ballroom atmosphere. The chairs and newly clothed tables had been moved off to the side with lit candles in the middle of each one, leaving room for people to dance in the middle of the room.

Light filters through thin maroon curtains that sway from the wind of the open window, casting a warm bright glow throughout the room. It reflects off the cream coloured drapes hanging in one corner of the room, framing the setup of a small jazz band with with Angie in the midst of it. She laughs with her temporary bandmates, her hair glowing gold in the light, helping them set up the rest of the equipment.

She had really went out indeed.

A small smile on his lips, Steve continues to push Peggy fully into the room to a vacant table, helping her move to the worn cushioned chair so she can face the band. He takes a seat perpendicular from her, watching the way her eyes rove about the room in silent wonder only to land on Angie, her eyes softening with an imperceptible smile.

He reaches out a hand and grasps Peggy’s resting on the table. She turns to him and smiles, “Have I told you yet how dashing you look?”

He turns his gaze to the table, feeling heat creep up his neck and looks up at her through his eyelashes, “And you look beautiful.”

Pleased and impressed, Peggy smiles at him, “And when did you learn to speak to a lady like that?”

His eyes flicker back to Angie, to find her unexpectedly already gazing tenderly at them. He meets her eyes and flashes her a smile that she returns, “I had some help.”

When he turns back to Peggy, she looks deeply at him and squeezes his hand with shining eyes.

It doesn’t take much longer for food to arrive, when minutes later the staff starts bringing in plates of food from a kitchen door. They’re eating in no time when Steve spies the band members settling into their spots with their instruments.

“They’re starting,” he says, making Peggy pause her eating to peer up at the band, watching as Angie places herself in front of a microphone with a flourish of her dress.

After a collective small clattering of utensils, a polite clap fills the room with baited breath once everyone realizes the show is about to start.

“Hello Inglewood,” drawls a man with dark skin and wrinkles in the corner of his eyes. “My name is Simon and we are _Warehouse Miracle_ , and featured with us today is Inglewood’s very own resident, Angela Martinelli, with whom we could not have done this without.”  
  
Another more enthusiastic clap goes through the crowd, as clearly about half of the room is familiar with and knows Angie. Steve and Peggy share a smile as Angie playfully rolls her eyes at Simon and curtsies with a bashful grin. “Thank you,” she murmurs into her microphone.

“We are delighted to perform for you all today, thank you for having us,” Simon finishes and with a silent countdown, the band starts to play.

The sound of _I’ll See You In My Dreams_ filling the room has Steve’s heart beating firmly in his chest. When Angie finally opens her mouth and sings into the microphone, a chill runs down his spine and he stares in wonder, having forgotten his food.

It’s ridiculous to think, but he had never actually heard her sing properly before. Only soft humming and the absurd sound of her running through vocal exercises. He’s entranced now, leaning forward with an elbow on the table and his chin in his palm, feeling himself frown stupidly at her in silent awe.

When the song ends and the room erupts with applause, he has to sit back and slowly clap, chuckling when Angie meets his eyes with a grin and wink. As another song starts, her gaze moves next to him and her grin falters.

Steve snaps his head to Peggy, finding her staring blankly at Angie, her haunted eyes faraway and misty. His shoulders tense and he reaches to place a hand on her back, “Peggy?”

She slowly turns to him, blinking away the wetness. “Sorry,” she stammers, her throat bobbing, “I...I had forgotten.”

He leans closer to her, moving his hand to grasp hers, “What did you forget?”

“Her voice,” she says, her words wobbling with emotion.

He feels his heart crack, watching her pull her hand away from his to slowly continue to eat her food, her hand trembling. His eyes drift away to helplessly stare at the dancefloor, watching as some residents get up from their tables to slow dance. Angie’s voice echoes in his ears, filling him with painful nostalgia.

They barely speak to each other as they finish their food and their plates are taken away, listening to the band play music from different decades and genres. They watch the dance floor fill up with more residents, and even some orderlies and nurses.

This isn’t going the way he had expected. He had pictured teasing grins and playful banter, reminiscent of their time spent together during the war, and instead Peggy’s ghost haunts the chair next to him. _Closure_ , he had said to Sam. Was this all he was going to get?

He couldn’t...he wouldn’t allow it.

He looks at Peggy, watching the way she stares at Angie, her eyes glassy and distant. “Hey,” he says softly, leaning forward and ducking his head to catch her eyes.

She meets his gaze and smiles softly at him. “Hello,” she says.

He can hear the blood rushing through his ears, “Would you like to dance?”

Peggy’s smile slowly broadens and she nods, “I thought you’d never ask.”

A grin cracks his grimly set mouth, and he smoothly gets up his chair to help Peggy stand, grasping her hand and waist firmly. She grips his arm tight as he slowly leads her towards the dance floor, catching Angie’s gaze in the crowd. She beams at them, her eyes brightening and giving him two thumbs up that he grin at.

When they settle near the middle of the floor, Angie’s words and lessons run through his head. He places one of Peggy’s hand on his shoulder with the other held in his hand next to them, while his other hand rests on her waist. Peggy quirks an eyebrow at him as he nervously steps closer to her.

“Do you think people will find it odd that we’re dancing together?” She whispers at him, barely imperceptible above the sound of Angie’s voice.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you’re a handsome young man, and I’m an old woman,” she simply says, shrugging. “That’s rather a strange sight, don’t you think?

He frowns, “I didn’t think that would bother you.”

She huffs a laugh, “It doesn’t, I was asking on your behalf. You’re blushing like a new bride.”

Steve feels his cheeks heat up even further, “I think we should start dancing.”

Peggy smiles fondly up at him, “We already are, darling.”

He nearly freezes, realizing that they’re already swaying to Angie’s voice, serenading them sweetly with _Dream A Little Dream of Me_. Peggy chuckles up at him and rests her head against his chest, no doubt hearing how hard his heart is pounding. She pulls her hand away from his to wrap both her arms around his waist, holding him closer. He places his hands on her back and rests his cheek on her head, careful to not ruin her hair.

It doesn’t take long for the realization that this is finally happening to hit him in his chest and pull the air from his lungs. That if he buries his nose in Peggy’s hair breathing in fresh soap and hair product, and closes his eyes listening to the sounds of people slowly swaying around them and Angie’s voice sending chills down his spine, he can almost picture that it’s eight o’clock on Saturday night in 1946.

Steve buries it deep within his caverns, paints it in a picture against his ribs and next to heart.

He doesn’t know how long they dance for, Angie singing one song after another for them, most he doesn’t recognize. As he’s listening to Angie sing, _“He held me for an instant, but his arms felt safe and strong,”_ Peggy speaks again.

“I had wondered,” he hears her say against his chest, fluttering his eyes open. “I had wondered what I would feel when I heard her sing again.”

His brow wrinkles in a frown at her sudden confession, “What do you mean?”

“If I would feel the same,” she continues as if she didn’t hear him. “I didn’t remember at first but...if he was there with me, the first time I heard it, would I feel the same about either of them? Or differently? Could I have loved them both?”

Bile rises to his mouth, waves of realization crashing on him. Steve shuts his eyes and thinks of ice. He takes more slow steadying breaths and reopens his eyes, blinking away the burning. “Who’s he?” He asks, his voice taut.

She doesn’t answer him for a moment, giving him time to feel dread fill up his lungs until she says wistfully, “Steve. His name was Steve.”

He blinks away tears, swallowing the lump in his throat. “I’m right here,” he rasps out, feeling his chest concave on itself. “Peggy, I’m right here.”

After a brief pause, Peggy slowly pulls back from his chest and looks up at him with glistening eyes. “Oh,” she breathes out and blinks, tears spilling over her cheeks. She raises her hands to sweep them over his cheeks, her eyes reverently searching his face. “It is you.”

He leans down to place a small kiss on her forehead and pulls back to see her give him a watery smile. “You’re late,” she says, shaking him slightly.

He nods with a chuckle, “So are you.”

She chuckles along with him, her eyes refusing to move from his. “I think I would have loved you both,” she whispers. “I’m not sure how, but...her voice has always been home to me, and yet, so were you.”

He doesn’t need to wonder anymore, not when Peggy finally drifts her eyes shut as Angie sings, pressing her ear back against his chest, _“And that is all, that love’s about. And we’ll recall when time runs out, that it only took a moment to be a loved a whole life long.”_

His breath catches in his throat, hearing the raw emotion in her voice. He looks up, his eyes searching for Angie through dancing bodies, and finds her staring at Peggy with her head slightly tilted, longing glistening in her eyes. It takes his breath away. Her gaze suddenly flickers up and she startles when she meets his eyes, blinking away her anguish to a bright smile when the song ends.

“Where did you learn to dance like this?” He hears Peggy ask him, concern tugging at his stomach.

“Angie,” he chokes out, his gaze drifting away from Angie singing a duet with Simon. “She helped me.”

“Angie,” Peggy repeats, breathing out her name wistfully. “That’s right...we used to dance together. A long time ago...she helped me too.”

“What did she help you with?”

“She taught me how to love again,” Peggy whispers and slowly pulls back to look up at him. “But I think...someone needs to remind her.”

His brow creases in a deep frown, briefly glancing back up at Angie who was now steadily ignoring him, “Remind her of what?”

Peggy huffs a laugh, he turns back to her only to be greeted with a sad knowing grin, “How to love someone else.”

* * *

 

The air is heavy between them when they’re back on the road. An odd tense stand-off. Steve doesn’t know what to say her, doesn’t know how to ask what had changed in the middle of her show. Why Angie was staring out her side of the window with distant eyes and a frown, her hair blowing in the wind and holding a tall glass filled with water and the gardenias in her lap.

The show had ended with a smattering of applause that Angie’s mouth curled up at, her smile not quite reaching her eyes. She had returned to them as the band began packing away their equipment and instruments, both she and Steve wearing tight-lipped smiles, unable to properly look at each other.

It was only when Peggy had praised Angie on her show, did a real bashful smile curl her lips, a blush colouring her cheeks as she had ducked her head. It had made his heart pound, wishing he had saved the gardenias to give to Angie after the show.

They had left Peggy in Olivia’s care after a terrifying and abrupt bout of coughing that had them jumping out of their skins with worry and leaving Peggy exhausted afterwards. The orderly had taken notice of the disconcerting silence between Steve and Angie, and shooed them off home with a concerned frown and promises to take care of Peggy until Angie arrived tomorrow.

They had taken turns kissing the top of her head, wishing her a happy birthday and waved forlornly as they left her with Olivia in her suite with vows to return soon. She had waved back with a small smile and glassy eyes.

With the sun setting behind trees and buildings, cascading pink and purple light across the sky, he drives with pure muscle memory to Angie’s house. The pair of them keep sneaking looks at each other out of the corner of their eyes, pretending like they didn’t notice when one caught the other looking.

Swallowing a lump down his throat, Steve turns on the music from his iPod at a stop light to serve as some sort of distraction, The Cure’s _Disintegration_ already playing on loop. He grimaces internally; it was one of the albums Angie had sneaked in his music library when he wasn’t paying attention.

When the light turns green, he peeks another glance at her. “I uh, I don’t think I told you yet,” he attempts pitifully, that she doesn’t even look at him. He clears his throat. “Your voice...I mean you’re singing...it was…”

“I know,” she sighs, closing her eyes as the wind hits her face. “You’re speechless, I get it. Happens all the time.”

He huffs a chuckle through his nose at her arrogance. “I think Peggy forgot it,” he says before he can stop himself. “What it sounded like.”

Steve glances at her again, watching her open her eyes to frown at him before they drift away out the windshield. “That happens a lot too,” she whispers, and he feels his heart drop to the pit of his stomach. “Did you enjoy it at least? Your date?”

He nods, gripping the steering wheel tight, “‘Course I did. One of the best I’ve ever had.”

She snorts, “One of the few you’ve ever had.”

He purses his mouth at her, pleased to see a smirk curling her lips. “How’d you even afford it all?”

Angie shakes her head, “Don’t worry about it.”

They fall into silence again. It feels like a complete mirror of their very first drive together. That day at the pizzeria. Heavy lull of silences, the air thick between them with something he can’t put his finger on.

When he finally slows next to the curb in front of the red brick rowhouse, he turns to fully look at Angie to see her staring up at the house, only the side of her face visible to him, the setting sun lighting up her hair in golden brown waves. He finds himself staring at her jaw, his hands suddenly itching to draw it in his sketchbook. His eyes drag over the sharp lines from her ear, down to her chin, and finally to her lips.

He blinks and looks down at the steering wheel, hearing blood rush through his ears.

Angie doesn’t move from her seat, she doesn’t move at all. After a few steadying breaths, he looks back up at her, watching her stare at the house as if she didn’t want to enter it at all. He licks his chapped lips and opens his mouth to say her name, but she beats him to it.

“It should have been you,” she whispers, her voice filled with tears and anguish. He blinks owlishly at her, his hands grasping the steering wheel to ground himself as his heart stutters in his chest. “Not me, not with all my lies,” she shakes her head, her words cracking. “It should have been you there with her. You with your freedom and your bravery...your truth and honour.”

His chest heaves, air escaping through his nose in pained breaths. With agonizing slowness, she turns to look at him, her tear-filled eyes meeting his, the regret in them taking his breath away. “Why didn’t you just give her the fucking coordinates?” She whispers vehemently.

His grip on the steering wheel tightens, the skin of his knuckles pulled white. He clenches his jaw and his shoulders tense, staring hard at her, “There wasn’t any time.”

“Time,” she breaths out with a humourless huff of laughter, look forward out the windshield. “Time. I had all the time in the world with her and you barely had none, and now look at us.”

He tilts his head, his hard stare melting into scrutiny, his eyes searching her with bewilderment. “How old are you?”

She snorts, wiping away her tears with the back of her hand, “Older than you.”

Steve leans back in his chair, his shoulders dropping and looking out the windshield, unable to discern what he’s feeling. Older than him. Older than his ninety-five years. He blinks and sighs.

They fall quiet once again as he takes in this newfound information, the sound of crickets and the low tones of music between them. Whatever the Red Room had accomplished, it had kept Angie alive for decades. It suddenly makes sense to him now, why she claims to be such an expert on pop culture and media. It almost makes him laugh.

He glances at her, watching as she looks down at the gardenia’s in her lap, her hands reverently running over the white petals. “How long were you two together?” He asks softly, breaking the silence.

She looks up at him through the corners of her eyes, looking unsurprised that he had figured it out, as if it was supposed to be more obvious to him than anyone else. She looks back down at the flowers and answers, “A long time. A good coupla decades.”

“When did you meet her?”

A small smile curls the corners of her lips, “1946. Just after the war. Came into the automat where I was workin’ and I…,” she pauses and exhales heavily. “She looked more real to me than anythin’ I had seen in a really long time.”

She looks up at him finally, giving him a sad smile. “It took us a long time, though,” she says, and leans her head back on the headrest and looks outside the window. “A coupla years of denial, struggling to keep ourselves and our secrets together. It was mine though that ultimately pulled us apart and glued us back together.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask what they were.”

She rolls her head to face him and smile wryly, “But you’re gonna ask anyways.” He responds with a shrug and grin that makes her smile slip away. “You know it’s all online. It’s all there. Everythin’ I’ve ever done before meetin’ Peg.”

He nods, “I know.”

“This is me giving you full permission to read it.”

“I don’t want to read it,” he says, leaning towards her and looking into her eyes with as much meaning as he can. “I’d rather hear it from you. Dark secrets and all.”

She’s silent for a moment, scrutinizing him with narrowed eyes and a lopsided grin. “There’s that earnest bullshit again.”

He chuckles and ducks his head, “I can’t help it.”

“I know,” she says, smiling adoringly at him. “It’s one of the things I love about you.”

Something fills his chest, something warm and inexplicable. He smiles slowly at her, watching as she licks her lips with a blush before glancing back at the house. “If wanna come inside, I’ll tell you all about it,” she says and looks back at him. “It’s a pretty long story though.”

He twists his mouth and hisses with a playful smile. “Well, I _am_ expected to be to be home by twelve but,” he drawls and chuckles when Angie rolls her eyes. “I prefer listening to your stories though. Especially if they have Peggy in them.”

She smiles shyly at him, “Even the sad ones?”

“Even the sad ones,” he repeats, as if it were the most obvious answer in the world.

They smile at each other as Robert Smith’s voice serenades them, his filtering through the speakers of his car. _“If only I’d thought of the right words I wouldn’t be breaking apart my pictures of you.”_

“I hope you realize how incredibly cliche this is,” Angie says, smirking.

He grins deviously at her, “You love this song.”

She lets out an undignified snort, making him laugh under his breath, “Only when I’m sober.”

With a grin, he shuts off the engine and they slowly step out of the car, with Angie carefully holding the glass of gardenias in one hand. She takes his hand when he rounds the car and leads him up the steps the door, only to pause and look up at him after she turns the keys to open the lock. “You ready?”

Steve quirks an eyebrow at her, “Are you?”

“Well, I mean it’s kinda messy. I did have some relatives stay over recently for a coupla days, they had an emergency move, and I haven’t had anyone other than family visit since Peg moved to Inglewood so I haven’t refurbished it in a while, and - “

“Ang,” he stops her with a chuckle. “It’s your home. I hate to break it to you, but if it’s anything like you I’m gonna love it either way.”

She pauses, her eyes staring fondly up at him and searching his face, her lips parting. His chest starts to faintly heave when she raises a hand to cup his cheek, and when she slowly raises up to press her mouth against his, he stops breathing.

His eyes slip shut and a trembling hand moves to rest against her waist. His heart drums music against his ribs and a shivers run down his spine, tasting the salt from the dried tears on her lips.

After what feels like hours that were really only a few seconds, Angie pulls far away enough to whisper against his parted lips, “Welcome to the Carter-Martinelli Residence.”

His eyes flutter open and he pulls further back with a swallow, a blush burning his cheeks when he meets Angie’s eyes. They smile warmly at each other, time slowing down. His hand moves from her waist to rest against the small of her back as she opens the door.

Steve licks his tingling lips, “Was Peggy as dizzy as I am when you first kissed her?”

Angie huffs a laugh as she steps inside, her eyes shining with bittersweet remorse, “Even better. She was terrified.”

He frowns, still standing on the small porch, “Why?”

She rolls her eyes with a grin and pulls him through the threshold, “Just get in here, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and there we have it! the series will continue with an as of yet unnamed part two. when?? i have no idea, so stay tuned!
> 
> thank you theseerasures for beta-ing, you can all blame her for instigating steve x angie, but you know what i'm not even sorry. it's too good, i'm utter trash for them. stegginelli/captain cartinelli through time and space.
> 
> and because i can't help myself, i made a playlist for your listening pleasure. go hard or go home. http://8tracks.com/youngbloodbuzz/gather-up-the-lost-and-sold
> 
> \--
> 
> translations:
> 
> Cazzo Madre di Cristo, quanto stupido ne pensa che siamo? = Fucking Mother of Christ, how stupid does she think we are...
> 
> (yo if anyone speaks fluent italian or russian pls raise your hands, google translate cannot be properly trusted.)

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! you can find me on tumblr as youngbloodbuzz, and check out the 'black widow au' tag for fun times.


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